I don’t live in the best part of Detroit. My neighborhood is really quiet. I love my duplex, but the neighborhood is run down. The houses on either side of us are vacant, along with the two across the street. The houses are large and built out of brick so they still look nice even though they are vacant, one of the other fellows even called my neighborhood “Compton Edison”.

There’s a guy that hangs around our neighborhood whose living situation is tentative at best. I think he sleeps in his car sometimes, in his friends’ homes, other times we don’t see him for a while. We will leave our returnable bottles and cans out for him when we have them. It is really no big deal for us, no one would probably take the time to return them. The guy really appreciates it though. The other day we were hanging out at home when I heard a knock at the door. It was the guy seeing if we were home and once we had said hello he told me he was running to the store. He returned with a two liter bottle of wild cherry Pepsi and a bag of sour cream and onion chips. He handed me the snacks and told me that he was thankful for us leaving the cans for him. It was a really small gesture but it had a big impact.

The fact that a man that has so little would give back with the little that he has meant a lot to me. Small gestures of kindness can go a long way. It is little things like the snacks the guy gave us that fuel a desire to give back to the city. Getting a thank you from him was an acknowledgement that our small act of kindness made an impact. In the big picture every small impact you make will influence a better Detroit and that’s why we are in the city.