Act of kindness

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Marjorie A. Bowlden
  • 911th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AIR RESERVE STATION, Pa. --  For many, the holiday season represents cheer and good will. For others, the cold weather symbolizes hard times. However, the season brings many opportunities for random acts of kindness that change the lives of strangers.

You only see the last in the movies though, right? Not always.

Senior Master Sgt. William Andrews, 911th Logistics Readiness Squadron superintendent, has been a civilian police officer for more than 20 years and has served with the Rock Hill Police Department in South Carolina for seven. As a patrolman, he sees it all; everything from domestic issues to parking violations falls under his umbrella of responsibility.

Every now and then, however, he encounters a situation that's very different from the norm, and during the 2014 holiday season, he got a call that turned out to be so much more than it seemed.

It was December 18. For South Carolina, the weather was cold and was getting colder. Near the end of his shift, Andrews received a call about a young boy loitering around a plaza and in the nearby library. The impression given was that he was a delinquent juvenile, but that wasn't the case.

"There were two women with Parks and Recreation noticed that he was hanging around in the plaza and that he wasn't dressed for the weather, and they called concerned for his welfare," said Andrews. "There was also some concern because of the time of day. He should have been in school, so why was he in the library?"

He decided to have a talk with the boy. Andrews, who's been a military member for 25 years, said that the values instilled in him by both the Marine Corps and the Air Force allow him to treat everyone from a fellow officer to a drug addict with the same amount of respect, and he extended that respect to the young boy.

"I called him 'young sir,' and he liked that," he said. "He respected the fact that I was giving him respect, and he returned it. It helped him open up."

Andrews soon came to understand the dismal situation at hand. The boy, who had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, was unable to attend regular school because he didn't have documentation required to address his educational needs. He was instead attending a school that was usually reserved for children with behavioral problems and offered classes at night twice a week.

However, the boy was unable to stay at home. His mother worked during the day and the mother's boyfriend worked night shifts, and they had set a rule that the boy couldn't be in the house and make noise during the day. So he was sent to the library until he had to walk to all the way to school, which was two and a half miles away from his daytime refuge.

"The first thing I'm thinking is that we have child neglect, child abuse and child abandonment issues," said Andrews. "[His mom] was sending him there at six or seven o'clock in the morning until four in the afternoon. He didn't have a lunch or any food and he was basically on his own. He was outside in the elements with only a light jacket and no hat or gloves."

Andrews explained the situation to the boy's mother and filed a report on the situation and got the Department of Social Services involved, as he was required to do.

However, he went above and beyond his duty. He took the boy out to get something to eat and bought him a new coat, hat, gloves and sweatshirt. He helped them start the process to get the boy enrolled in regular school. He's even working to make sure the boy is able to attend a special summer camp run by the Rock Hill PD.

"If my son or my grandson was out there, I'd want somebody to look out for them, so I need to do the same thing," he said. "I could have just done a report, referred him to DSS and put him in the system, and it wouldn't have done anything. This way, I made sure that he got something to eat and he got some warm clothes."

Andrews went out of his way to change this boy's life. He was able to intervene and improve his situation, and just in time for the holidays, too. Through his actions, he showed that random acts of kindness aren't always quite so random, and that all of us have the opportunity to improve the lives of others through actions both big and small.