The other day, while waiting outside a classroom in the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center, I overheard a teacher lecturing her class. She was urging them to be gracious and give thanks to the community for providing them the opportunity to attend college and enjoy a standard of living unexperienced by most. The students all sat there unusually still and silent as light streamed through the windows and her words filled their anxious ears.

In that instant, I thought of how truly privileged I am, and I wanted to give back somehow … only I wasn’t really sure how to go about doing it. That’s when I thought of the many club signs posted around campus devoted to charity, all who readily accept eager volunteers. Students can join organizations like the Johnson City Mentor program or Habitat for Humanity in the effort to benefit less privileged individuals than themselves. If everyone were to take just a couple of hours out of their busy schedules a week and join such programs, we could accomplish so much, like providing mentors to parentless kids, helping the learning disabled with their homework, feeding the famished and cleaning local parks. Engaging in activities like these is the least we can do to benefit a world that has been so lenient on us; we are obliged to contribute at least a mere fraction of that generosity back, are we not?

While boarding the Shopper’s Special Tuesday evening, I watched as an old lady, burdened with a stack of groceries piled well above eye level. Before the scene inevitably turned into an avalanche of tomato sauce, broken egg shells and spilled milk, a kind young girl rushed to her aid, cradling the groceries in hand. The old woman profusely thanked the girl as she loaded her things onto the bus.

Witnessing that kindness was a refreshing change from the stark truths of war and insensate violence going on in the world today. Whenever you turn on the news, all you ever hear are stories about death, destruction and the degradation of morality. However, I’ve come to realize that, in spite of this, there is a proportionate amount of altruism to be observed in the world, and these things don’t get the kind of coverage they deserve. Reporters will have the public believe heroes are a thing of fiction that exist only in fairy tales and comic books, but, in fact, each and every one of us has the potential to become a hero locally and globally, like the heroine of this story, “bus stop girl.”

So reader, I implore you to lend a helping hand whenever you see someone in need.