Face in the Crowd Awards

Well, as promised we awarded our 1st 2 FIC Awards last night!

Helen for giving up a vacation to help Adam get to a marathon for charity! And they did not know each other!

Salma is now known as Ms. Santa here is her story!

Hi James,

This story is very simple, it is selfless, and I would like to share it with your listeners for your version of the Arthur awards! It is not about saving the world, or doing some gigantic effort that may seem too big for many. It is about small things that also matter, small things that make you think: hmmm that was a nice thing to do, I wish more people did things like that... or I wish I actually thought and did that!

And that's where the story starts, it is about a small thing that my friend Salma did in two Christmases ago. The story starts in early December 2008, when I picked up Salma from this beauty salon where she was doing her nails. She gets in the car, and tells me: I was talking to the girl that did my nails, and do you believe that all of the girls that work here have to work on christmas day!? They don't get any day off, that must be so sad!

It is worth noting that Salma is actually muslim, however she likes the Christmas spirit of families, friends getting together and enjoying a special time together. While looking all surprised and sad about these girls at the Salon, her eyes suddenly light up and she starts smiling, and she says: I know what I am going to do, I will put together goody bags for all these girls, and I will deliver these bags to them on Christmas day. This will surely put a great smile on their face, it will pull them away, at least for a few instances, from their "office" and will hopefully make their christmas day a little more special!

I thought, hmm, thats a cool idea, but deep inside, I thought this is probably another one of those ideas that people come up with in the heat of the moment, but do not really follow through. A couple of weeks passed, and to my surprise, Salma tells me the plan for her Friday: I will go to the Supermarket to buy the stuff missing on my list! She works for a famous cosmetics company, so she already gathered from her office a lot of cosmetics products that the Beauty Salon ladies should love (and use for themselves and not on clients). However, she wanted to give more, to make the gift more complete. She went and bought nice bags, and filled them with various items that she thought the girls would love. As I work in a famous chocolate company, I wanted to contribute as well and provided Salma with lots of fresh chocolate to fill the bags! :) If I recall correctly, she had planned to put together around 15-20 goody bags, and unfortunately I was flying away for Christmas, so I could not provide my help till the end. I made sure to give some "advice" to Salma to get help from others, but knowing her excitement, passion and dedication, I knew that she will not think and do the whole thing on her own, and she will invest a good sum of her money in the whole process.

From there on, I just know the story as Salma told it to me. She said that she got to the mall with her car filled with bags. She ignored my advice to get a trolley, and struggled to carry all the bags at once from the parking lot to the Beauty Salon. With her hands all red and tired, she enters the Salon on Christmas morning... and she sees all the girls busy working on other women getting ready for their fancy lunches. The girls looked strangely at Salma, wondering why this girl walked in with many bags... and then Salma took one bag and yelled Merry Christmas!!! This is for you!!! So at first, they looked at her akwardly, confused.. Then Salma insisted, take this bag, its a gift! Then one of the ladies came close to take one bag, then another, and then suddenly, when they all realized that these were their actual gifts, Salma was swarmed by these girls smiling and laughing on Christmas day, wanting to find out what goodies they got in these nice bags!! I can just imagine the smile on Salma's face as well, seeing her efforts and time resulted in so many small little giggles and laughs on Christmas day!

This experience was such a success that Salma repeated it in 2009, and it got again the same happiness and smiles that its intended to. I guess this explains why Salma's name at that beauty salon is Ms. Santa :).

This is it, a simple, cute selfless act that makes a small difference. If more people do more small selfless acts, I believe they would add up to big acts that can make big differences around us! I learnt something from Salma's actions, and I hope more people do as well!

Thanks,
Walid