This is a story about how one act of kindness can have a ripple effect, inspiring more and more kindness and doing more and more good. It all started when an elderly woman named Delores Marotta went into a Michigan gas station and asked for three dollars’ worth of gas. A police officer overheard her request and saw that she was struggling with a cane, so decided to offer to pump the gas for her. As he was pumping the gas, they got to talking, and he found out that she needed enough gas to get to a doctor appointment, but couldn’t afford more than three dollars’ worth until her next Social Security check arrived. She was having trouble paying her bills after her husband died and kept coming up short on cash after paying her basic living expenses.
The cop, Officer Todd Bing, pumped an additional 20 dollars’ worth of gas into Marotta’s car — out of his own pocket — and the gas station’s owner, Seth Kasyouhanan, witnessed his act of kindness. Touched by the kind act, he took a picture of Officer Bing with Marotta and posted it onto his Facebook page, hoping to warm some hearts by showing that good people exist and random acts of kindness can make a huge impact. The post went viral, and suddenly Kasyouhanan was receiving Facebook message after message from people who wanted to send Marotta money.

Inspired by Officer Bing’s act of kindness, Seth Kasyouhanan set up a GoFundMe campaign on behalf of Delores. | Image via CNN
Fundraising to Change a Life
Kasyouhanan decided to set up a GoFundMe campaign on Marotta’s behalf, posting a short but sweet request: “I’m raising money for a customer of mine. She is a single elderly lady that has been struggling to pay her bills ever since her husband passed away. She’s roughly short $1000 on her bills every month. Some days she has money for gas and groceries and some days she doesn’t. I believe it’s only right to help someone that’s struggling. If we all get together and work as a team we can make this world a better place!”
The GoFundMe campaign set a goal of raising $5000 for Marotta — and raised $27,633 in the course of four months. Many donations were small (in the five to 25 dollar range) but a whopping 887 donations added up to a lot of money and a lot of kindness — and every single dollar and act of kindness matters.
Trophy Central believes that every single person involved in helping Marotta is trophy-worthy. One of them is the winner of our latest Random Acts of Trophy-ness “Show Us Your Sue” campaign to reward kindness: Seth Kasyouhanan. His personalized, engraved trophy reads: “The Caring Heart Award: Fundraising to Change a Life”.
Congratulations, Seth, on your win! And thank you for your extreme act of kindness.
New to “Show Us Your Sue”?
For those of you new to our “Show Us Your Sue” campaign (welcome!!) you might be wondering where it got its name. Our Random Acts of Trophy-ness “Show Us Your Sue” campaign was inspired by the Sue Heck character on the sitcom The Middle. We wanted to give out trophies to people not typically recognized in traditional trophy-giving spheres. People like Sue Heck, who in middle school and high school tried out for virtually every activity, every possible performance — never to be chosen, never to win recognition. We’ve always believed that just the fact that Sue keeps trying out despite being rejected over and over again is in it of itself trophy-worthy. Her persistence is admirable, her positivity infectious, and she’s the kind of person who inspires others with her determination and strong-will.
The Sue Hecks of the world deserve trophies just as much as the cheerleaders and jocks. It’s our goal to reward everyday acts of kindness (or trophy-ness!) with our custom, personalized trophies. And we hope that by rewarding good deeds, it will propel more. Just like how the cop’s act of kindness inspired more and more people to do good and help make a life better. Kindness propels kindness, smiles propel smiles — and that’s what we’re all about. It’s in our tagline. Sure we deliver trophies, but our main goal is to deliver smiles.
We hope this story made you smile! And we hope you’ll help us deliver MORE smiles by nominating the next recipient of our Random Acts of Trophy-ness “Show Us Your Sue” award! Do YOU know any everyday hero who inspires? Someone who makes the world a better place by being him/herself?! Then please #ShowUsYourSue! Nominate a kind person in the comments section below or on Facebook or Twitter using the #ShowUsYourSue hashtag. We just may send them a shiny trophy to reward their kindness.