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Dec 22, 2015

"The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter. " --Norman Cousins

A Yuletide Gift of Kindness

"The year was 1933 and Christmas was just a week away. Deep in the trough of the Great Depression, the people of Canton, Ohio, were down on their luck and hungry. Nearly half the town was out of work. Along the railroad tracks, children in patched coats scavenged for coal spilled from passing trains. The prison and orphanage swelled with the casualties of hard times. It was then that a mysterious "B. Virdot" took out a tiny ad in the Canton Repository, offering to help the needy before Christmas. All he asked was that they write to him and tell him of their hardships. B. Virdot, he said, was not his real name, and no one would ever know his true identity. He pledged that those who wrote to him would also remain anonymous." In 2008 Ted Gup came upon an old suitcase stuffed with letters addressed to B. Virdot...