The kindness of strangers: helping a harried dad who tossed his daughter's schoolwork by mistake

CBC Radio One's The Early Edition is asking listeners to share their stories of kindness from strangers for a series that runs on Thursday mornings.

This week's story takes place in 2007 at a recycling yard in New Westminster. Phillip Legg was there to right a wrong for his daughter and the task felt nearly impossible.

Dear Strangers,

I met you at your workplace while I was frazzled and desperate because my bad habit was setting my own daughter up to fail.

My bad habit? Cleaning the house in a frenzy and purging papers from the home office. The result? I binned my daughter's binder with all her course notes for her current semester at Simon Fraser University.

My gallant gesture? Telling her I would retrieve it for her, whatever it took. Well it turned out that what it would take was you.

The next morning, I begged the yard attendant to let me into my local recycling depot in Burnaby. I climbed inside a giant municipal bin and thrashed around, but the amount of papers inside made my task a needle in a haystack situation.

I knew the bin needed to be dumped out to properly root around. I asked to tip it, but the attendant said it belonged to your company in New Westminster and I'd need permission. So I called you. And I'm so glad I did.

You dispatched a truck to move the bin to your yard where it could be dumped out for me.This as the good news. The bad news — I was given about 15 minutes to search because that bin was headed to the docks.

But that pile...it was big. No way that was getting sorted in that time frame. But I'd promised by daughter...so I started digging.

'Is this it?'

Then I heard the tools in the yard go quiet. The entire yard crew, about a dozen guys, had come to help. 

"Is this it?" I heard about five minutes into their search.

There it was. Ruth's binder brandished in the air by my new hero. It still looked pristine.

From the woman who answered the phone and dispatched a truck for a distressed dad, to the yard crew who saved the day and my daughter's GPA, words are not enough.

I left a little money for you and I was told it went toward your staff Christmas party. You deserve it, you elves.

Your company no longer exists but your kindness will be forever remembered.

Thank you, 

Phillip Legg

If you have a story about the kindness of strangers, email The Early Edition at earlyed@cbc.ca.