This morning I received a touching email from a very good friend of mine, John McDowell.

John and I worked together at Airman Magazine back in the mid-90s. He is a very talented photojournalist and graduated from the RIT PJ course prior to coming to the Aiman Magazine staff. He was also selected as the Military Photographer of the Year for 1995. John also shares his visual story at his site: Air Force Scrapbook.

John has always had a big heart and he is always looking for ways in making life more pleasant for others, especially those in need. He volunteered for tours to Bosnia, Somalia, Kenya, an many others to visually portray how the United States was providing support to these countries in feeding the poor, putting the focus on the humanitarian side of the effort, many times at the risk of his own life. Now that he has retired from the Air Force, he has turned his focus toward his local community.

Here is the letter he sent me this morning:

Dear friends and family,

I wanted to tell you about something I did recently. All I hear is how bad the economy is on the news, which is over dramatized for the sake of ratings. I guess I’m fortunate, because the bad economy is not affecting me so badly, or rather I refuse to let the doom and gloom affect me in a negative way. I tend to focus on the positive, like how hard people work to earn the money they use to support their family. There is a lot of good things happening out there, you just have to notice it.

I decided to try to applaud some of that hard work I see accomplished in my neighborhood grocery store by writing a letter to the CEO of the Company, just to see what might happen. I was very happy with the response I got. I attached my letter and the response I got from Jewel-Osco Grocery Chain.

I am so happy I wrote the letter, not because of the $25 gift card they sent me, but by recognizing the hard work of the two people I highlighted in my letter. I knew the name of the store manager but I didn’t know the name of the cashier, but I included the transaction information on my receipt, which has the cashier’s ID number, so they knew who she was.

They sent me a $25 gift card as well as a $25 gift card for the Manager and the cashier. The positive in the 25 minutes it took me to sit down and write a letter is at least $75 and the feeling two people will have when they are recognized by their supervisor for their hard work. I look at as if I just added $25 dollars to that cashier’s paycheck for that week just by writing a letter. At $7.50 per hour for her it would take her 3.3 hours to earn that $25, now that is positive.

I would like to ask you all to take the time this week to single out someone out there who works for a big corporation and take the time to write a letter to their CEO praising that employee’s performance. It won’t be hard to find a hard worker; they are all over the place. It takes such little time to write down an employee’s name and sit down and write a few lines praising their service. Even if they only get a pat on the back, it will mean so much to that person to know someone valued their service. I have written a letter like this a couple of times in the past and I assure you companies love to get the chance to praise their people. Please forward this e-mail to all your friends and let’s all do something nice for someone else.

John McDowell

If you are as touched by this letter as I was, please feel free to copy and paste this into an email. In these times of economic and political strife, we all need to stand together to overcome adversity and show our good will toward others.

Thanks for your unselfishness John, and ... God bless!

Labels: Personal