Things I discovered today from knocking on neighbors’ doors after the Buffalo Blizzard:
- An elderly neighbor, who had an electric stove (but no electricity) had no way of heating up the food she had stored.
- Two neighbors had no way of communicating (in case of serious emergency) because their phones died (and they were completely snowed in their houses).
- A really unlucky neighbor’s window got smashed in early into the blizzard (from a patio pole that came loose from wind gusts)—causing blizzard like conditions to scream into her living room of her unpowered house.
I share this, not to share how helpful I was in helping solve these problems, but as a reminder that sometimes, the people who need the most help are the ones who have the most trouble asking.
The elderly neighbor wasn’t gonna trudge through the snow knocking on doors to ask for help—and the neighbor whose window got smashed in was so barricaded with snow that she couldn’t even open her front door without risking it breaking from bowing.
This goes for the people in everyday weather situations just as much as it does for people in the midst of a post-blizzard reality.
If you can find it in yourself to take the initiative, offer help proactively, and make it a regular selfless practice of asking something as simple as: “Hey! Is there anything I can do to help you?”—I imagine you’ll make a profound impact in the lives of some really grateful, humble-hearted people.