NPR’s Goats and Soda Asks Readers to Share Stories of Life-Changing Kindness
Puno, Peru – A simple act of friendship - adjusting a hat nearly lost to the wind – encapsulates the power of kindness, as highlighted in a recent goats and Soda feature on NPR. The story, accompanied by a photograph from Ana Caroline de Lima of The Everyday Projects, illustrates how small gestures can have a significant impact, prompting NPR to solicit similar experiences from its audience.
NPR’s Goats and Soda, known for its global health and progress reporting, is collecting personal narratives of transformative kindness to explore the ripple affect of compassion. The initiative arrives as studies increasingly demonstrate the positive impact of kindness on both the giver and receiver, fostering stronger communities and improving overall well-being. Readers are invited to submit their stories via email at goatsandsoda@npr.org, with the possibility of inclusion in a future goats and Soda report.
The featured image, taken on April 1, 2017, depicts maria assisting her friend Rosa with her hat in Puno, Peru. According to de Lima, the moment embodies the essence of true friendship: “True friends are like hat superheroes – always ready to save the day (or at least your hat) when the wind attacks.”
NPR acknowledges the contributions of the Everyday projects, a collective of photojournalists who provided images of kindness for the story. the piece also credits freelance journalist Kamala Thiagarajan, based in Madurai, Southern India, for her reporting on global health, science, and development, with previous work appearing in publications like The New York Times and The Guardian. She can be found on X @kamal_t.
