The kindness of strangers: return of a stolen wallet on the Granville Strip

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 on Vancouver's Granville Strip one weekend in 2005. Chelsea Newcombe was a University of British Columbia student at the time and had just moved to the city from Duncan, B.C. a few months earlier.

Dear stranger,

I met you during a night out with some friends when we were out gallivanting down the Granville Strip.

We were all laughing and making our way down the street. One of my guy friends had picked me up and was carrying me over his shoulder.

Seemingly out of nowhere, these two larger kind of thuggish-looking guys yell out at us.

"Hey, put her down," they said.

Then one of them just clocked my friend right in the face.

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We were all just shocked.

I was thinking this was some misguided chivalry and maybe they thought I was in trouble.

Turns out, it was just a distraction so that one of them could grab my bag and run off.

Unfortunately for them, I didn't really have anything valuable with me.

But they did get my I.D., my bus pass, the keys to my dorm — basically everything I needed to get home and and live my day-to-day life.

We looked around for a bit, but realized that was kind of pointless. Even if we did find the men, what would we do?

I sat down on the curb with one of my friends and started crying, just feeling overwhelmed.

Getting robbed and seeing a friend be assaulted is a pretty scary thing.

We sat there waiting for another friend, who had gone to buy us some pizza, to return.

Granville Street is busy on the weekends, with lots of people on the sidewalk having fun and lots of lights on.

All of a sudden, I hear someone say, "Hey, is this you?"

I looked up and saw you: a girl, probably around my age in your late teens, holding up my I.D.  

I never asked, but I assumed you were living on the streets because you had your belongings and a sleeping bag with you. You looked like you were in a bad spot.

You told me you'd found a bunch of items scattered beside a dumpster down one of the alleys and went to the closest main street, Granville, to look for the owner.

I couldn't believe you'd found me.

I offered to get you some money from the ATM as thanks, since you'd found my debit card too.

You refused, though, and were very gracious.

You told me it was fine, you was just doing the right thing.

You did agree to take the pizza my friend had just bought, and some cigarettes.

I never got your name and I never saw you again but I think about that encounter every time I go downtown. You don't forget something like that.

Thank you.

Yours,

Chelsea Newcombe

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