When DSP Carol Moore had an idea on her heart to share something special with people who live on Elm St. and Main St. for Easter weekend, she had no idea it would be the ultimate act of “pay it forward”.
Carol made the decision to purchase dinner to show her gratitude and love to everyone she works with at Elm Street and the neighbors at Main Street In Delhi. In her words, “Everyone’s been amazing in all of this and I wanted to do something nice.” When she reached out to Danny’s in Walton to see if they could put a take out order together of this size they were happy to accommodate.
The amazing thing was that when Carol stopped to pick up the large order the staff at Danny’s told her that someone had decided to ‘pay it forward’ and that they paid for the entire dinner. Carol shared with us, “I cried, still am a little. How amazing and generous of a complete stranger to do such a kind thing for just the sake of being kind.”
Carol adds, “When I arrived at Elm St. everyone was waiting patiently for dinner to arrive. They knew what time I was arriving. I have to say my heart grew a little when I walked in the door. I could feel the excitement and the gratitude from each and every person there. Josh said to me “thank you, Carol, this is good and was really nice of you.”
The expressions on Kevin and Shannon’s faces say it all. ♥
Carol is just one of the amazing team of dedicated Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) here at The Arc of Delaware County. Her act of kindness exemplifies the amazing person that she is. The beautiful stranger that we may never know, who paid for those dinners exemplifies the support and kindness in our communities.
Our DSP’s are front line workers. They leave the safety of their homes every day to ensure that some of the most vulnerable among us are cared for, safe and living full and joyful lives during these trying times. We are soberly reminded of that vulnerability as we hear the sad reports from our sister chapters downstate at the epicenter of this viral attack. We mourn with them and send our love. Many of our DSPs have children at home trying to homeschool. All are away from their loved ones oftentimes for days and overnight. It is a hard time for everyone. These acts of kindness are medicine that soothes aching hearts and tired souls.
Quite frankly, DSPs in the field of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities are often overlooked and the people they support have traditionally been marginalized and tucked away somewhere away from community creating within everyone a burdensome limited belief of something far less incredible and valuable than all of these people truly are.
So we want to say thank you! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for embracing us and supporting us as a vital and important part of your community! Carol’s kindness, the kindness of the stranger, Danny’s kindness are exactly what “community” looks like and is the ultimate way to support everyone! All superheroes! All wearing capes of a different color. ♥
