Random acts of snowy kindness to warm your heart
Published 1:30 am Friday, February 15, 2019
EVERETT — The past week brought out the worst in weather and the best in people.
The good “snow-maritans” stepped up. Some had big shovels and trucks.
Little things also made a big difference.
A Facebook post by The Daily Herald asked readers to share their stories.
“I’m a mail carrier with a walking route in Snohomish and a customer (Tammy Winter) brought me some very hot hot chocolate,” Melissa Wheeler responded in a Facebook comment. “Totally made my day and helped dethaw me a little.”
Wheeler, 30, of Lake Stevens, serves U.S. Postal Service mailboxes in the downtown area, and really was out there in the rain, snow and slush.
The act of kindness was during one of the worst storms.
“It was toward the end of my day,” she said by phone. “It was right after we had more snow and it was really cold and my toes were frozen and one of my customers came out and asked if I wanted a hot chocolate. It was really nice.”
She knew what she was getting into when she started delivering mail five years ago. Her parents, John and Wanda Hollaway, are retired Everett mail carriers.
Stefanie Turay, of Lake Stevens, wrote how neighbors banded together to clear her hilly road.
“Most of us were getting out OK before that last snow dump,” she said by phone. “We all had to stay home and lose pay on Tuesday. Somebody came out and cleared the top. People saw that and then everybody went out and started clearing the whole street.”
The snow angels found Karen Payne.
“At the beginning of the snow days (I) woke up to find my sidewalk shoveled,” she wrote on Facebook. “Two neighbors have kept it clear for the duration. One walked the rounds of Safeway, Bartell’s and Walgreens for my and other neighbors’ prescriptions. Exchanges of homemade chicken soup, brownies … and good company.”
Payne, 76, said the neighbors, Terri Amburgy and Roxy Gesler, also cleaned off her deck.
“They did everything, not only for me but the rest of the neighborhood,” she said by phone. “Roxy and Terri went around and cleaned drains so the water could go down.”
Raissa Sanjurjo-Bloom, owner of Mad-Bev Espresso at the corner of Madison Street and Beverly Boulevard, had to close her stand Monday and Tuesday.
Wednesday was slow and dicey until Mel Steele and Steve Etheridge, members of veterans club Fleet Reserve Association Branch 170, showed up with an excavator and shovel in the lot she shares with Corner Grocery.
“Our neighbors at FRA Club 170 cleared the entire parking lot surrounding my business so traffic can safely come and go. We’re so grateful,” Sanjurjo-Bloom wrote.
She offered them drinks on the house, but only one took her up on it.
“This is my sole income. This is what I need to support my family and pay my bills,” Sanjurjo-Bloom said by phone.
Stanwood resident Randy Heltne, construction coordinator at Everett Housing Authority, put a lot of miles on his truck making sure people made it safely to work.
“My co-worker has offered to pick his teammates up and get them to work during the storms,” wrote Erica Dias, an agency manager. “Come to find out, not only did he pick up his teammates and get them to work safely on more than one occasion, he had already been up since 4 in the morning on these same days, getting his granddaughter to daycare, his daughter to work, and his wife to work.”
Chan Seth wrote how her brother-in-law cleared the entrance to the entire neighborhood and her driveway.
“With three young kids and a husband on a business trip, I am forever grateful for his help,” she wrote. “I can now take the kids to school tomorrow morning! Yippee!”
No doubt a lot of parents echoed that.
Andrea Brown: abrown@heraldnet.com; 425-339-3443. Twitter @reporterbrown.
