Kenny Badger is a firm believer in karma, that if you do something good for someone else, that it will come back to you.
Badger, who is on Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) notes that times can be tough trying to stretch a fixed income to support his common-law wife and their two children at home, a two-month-old boy and 15-month-old girl.
But, he said, “I’ve been through harsh times to realize that money’s not everything.”
So he didn’t think much of giving what little he had to someone else. He was at the bank paying bills, when he overheard a conversation that sounded like one person was in need of some money.
“This lady she came in and she was talking on the phone. She was kind of irritated,” he recalled, saying he overheard the woman saying she would send the person $40, which would cost her $60, and which would only leave her $40 for the rest of the month.
She ended by telling the person, “I love you,” before hanging up, said Badger. As he finished paying up his bills, he took out an extra $20, which he handed to the woman, saying, “Here you go.”
The woman was dumbfounded, and asked him if he was sure, to which he responded confidently, “No, it’ll come back.” The woman said he was crazy, but Badger said he just told her, “OK, bye.”
“Two days later, we got a call, you guys are going to get adopted, which I never had before. It was just really nice to hear,” said Badger. Badger and his common-law wife, Penny Orton, were told they would receive a Christmas hamper from the Knights of Columbus and also heard from Parent Link programmer Sheila Parks that she was putting them on the Adopt-a-Family program she coordinates.
For Badger, it was just another example from his life that good deeds always come back around, with his small $20 contribution coming back to him in the form of a big load of groceries to carry the family through January.
“Any time you can give a little, it’s a good time. You give a little, you receive a little. I’ve been doing that all my life,” he said, adding his parents used to tell him - “Always respect people, and they’ll respect you back - I stuck with that. And it’s got me far.”
Parks explained that every year, she has people who want to help another family in need, which is where the Adopt-a-Family began. This year, 14 families, including families of seniors and families of parents with children, received help in some fashion from those who were in a position to give back, with Badger and Orton receiving several staples to stock their pantry, including flour, sugar, rice, canned fruit and more.
But Parks explained the program is about more than just giving presents or groceries. “There’s a couple who’s adopting a senior, they will include them in their Christmas supper and may be able to help at different times as well.”
Another family is paying off a phone bill for a single mom and her children, so that the mother can have a phone again, she added, while another mother and child came and dropped off six boxes of gently-used toys and clothes for others who might otherwise do without.
“My heart grows and grows and grows because I see people care about others,” she said. “It’s a community with heart, and I see so much of that in the work that I do. (People) just open their hearts and help where they can.”
By the time Christmas is done, Parks said she can be exhausted by all the extra programming that happens at the Parent Link Centre and additional volunteering, but that it’s an exhaustion in the best way possible, because she sees people coming in as strangers, and leaving as friends, lifted up by the kindness of others. They’ll leave the centre after giving Parks a great, big hug, a gesture filled with emotion that can’t be given voice to.
“We’re offering hope for the future, for their children.”
