Jaime: Tuscon, AZ 

On December 6, 2015 I was preparing for a return flight home from Tucson, AZ when my friend Anne gave me a Ben's Bells Kindness Coin.  She explained that Ben's Bells was a well-known Tucson non-profit project dedicated to kindness and instructed me to give the coin to someone I saw being kind.

To my delight, instead of feeling stressed about travel, I found myself focused on finding kindness.  As I was waiting in the line to go through security, I found my chance. The woman in front of me was travelling with a toddler who was having a total and complete meltdown and she was frantically trying to wrangle her bags, the kid, the stroller and a carseat.  As I helped her load her belongings onto the conveyor belt, I saw a man, whom I assumed to be travelling with her, on the other end helping with more of her belongings.  

We got through the scanner and I realized that the man in front of her was also a stranger to this woman.  I watched him carry her stroller and carseat all the way to the gate, watch her stuff so she could take her child to the bathroom and then carry her belongings to the gate for her.  Fortuitously, I ended up in line behind him.  When I handed him the coin and thanked him for his kindness, his face lit up.  He had heard of Ben's Bells, but never seen one of the coins. He immediately swore to pass it on at the first opportunity.

I realized, in that moment, that I wanted to create my own kindness token project at home. I spent the whole flight home sketching out my ideas and with a lot of research and a lot of help, a month later,  voila, we have Tikkun Tokens.