By Avery Friedt

Many families were affected by the blizzard that hit our area this weekend. It was a bad situation for many of us, but from this disaster came stories of people who went out of their way to lend a helping hand. That is the case with my neighbor, Rick. This was our blizzard experience.

My dad left town on Thursday to go to Kansas City, so my mom, my two sisters and I were the only ones at my house. The snow drifted up so high in front of our door, we were literally trapped inside, unless we wanted to walk through the 6 foot drifts in the backyard and crawl over the privacy fence. With no power, our land line was useless and our cell phones were dead, so we had no way to call anyone for help. I managed to get through the back door to find a shovel, but when I got to the shed, I found that it too was covered in a mountain of snow. There was nothing we could do except sit and wait.

That’s what we were doing a few hours later when we heard the doorbell ring. We were extremely confused as we opened the door and saw that our porch and walkway were cleared off. Our brand new neighbor, Rick, who had moved in just a week ago, stood there with a shovel and a smile on his face. “Hey guys, I saw you had a pretty nasty drift blocking your door, and I just wanted to make sure everyone is okay!” he said. We thanked him over and over again, and assured him we were all fine. We offered to pay him, but Rick refused to take our money. “I was just helping out a neighbor!” he called as he walked off to assist more people on our block. Rick had no idea my dad was gone, or that our shovels were buried. He didn’t even know our names. He had shoveled our walkway because he was a genuinely kind person, and he didn’t expect anything in return. My faith in humanity was restored that day.