One such heartwarming story involves the Amt family, consisting of John, Randi, and their three children. For the past ten days, they have been residing in a local hotel, but not for leisure. Their home experienced significant flooding due to a toilet malfunction that occurred during their fall break, necessitating their extended hotel stay.
John Amt humorously mentioned, “Living in a hotel can be fun for a little while, but being in a hotel for a long time gets to be a little difficult.”
The difficulty increased as they attempted to put their three children to bed while the hotel’s hallway was bustling with students from Eureka, Kansas, who were in town for the FFA convention. The Amts recounted how the students were being noisy in the hallway, particularly around 10:30 at night.
Randi initially felt frustrated and considered approaching the students to request quieter behavior. However, she decided to wait for a more opportune moment, which presented itself the following night when she knocked on the students’ door.
She explained to the students, “I know you’re in town for the FFA convention, and we want you to have fun while you’re here, but you were a little loud last night, and you woke up my kids. I was just hopeful you could be a little quiet tonight.”
Randi also shared the reason behind her family’s extended hotel stay, describing how their house had flooded and they couldn’t return home. The students, understanding the situation, apologized for their noisiness the previous night and wished the Amt family luck.
Around 20 minutes later, Randi discovered a heartwarming note on her hotel room floor. Inside the note, it read, “We’re sorry about your home. We wanted to give you something maybe that could help you,” accompanied by $40 in cash.
The following morning, when the Amt family encountered the FFA students in the hotel lobby and expressed their gratitude, the students revealed that they had heard a speech at the convention about the importance of paying kindness forward. They had distributed cards to all attendees, encouraging them to find someone in need and perform a good deed.