7 Incredible Things People Have Done to Help Out Their Neighbors

Best birthday ever

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Angie Tyma had called her house in Hudson, Florida, “home” for 35 years. When her husband died about 20 years ago, a family friend bought the house and rented it back to Tyma. Little did she know, though, that her friend would eventually run into money problems and stop paying the mortgage. The lender foreclosed the property, and the house was sold, leaving Tyma without a home. Her neighbor from a few doors down, Danielle Calder, couldn’t stand the thought of Tyma and her two dogs living in a hotel room, so she put down $167,500 to buy the house back. Tyma moved back in on her 89th birthday and now pays rent to Calder. "It was the right thing to do," Calder says to TODAY. “We’re family—the whole neighborhood.”

Mother figure

Kalon Smith had been in foster care since age two, until a judge sent him back to live with his mom when he was 17. When his mom kicked him out of the house, he spent winter nights sleeping in a park while trying to finish high school. Smith had no bed, no documents, no shower—and no food. He went back to his old neighborhood and knocked on the door of Brook Welton, hoping to get something to eat. But she didn’t just give him a meal and send him on his way. She took him into her home, where he had warm food and a roof over his head. She also set him up with the church down the street, which helped him find a job and apply for a social security card. "Brooke has been my backbone. She's my mother figure now," Smith tells WFAA.

Suspicious newspaper

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John Connelly had always been kind to his next-door neighbor. He would shovel snow and melt ice for the elderly woman, and even carry her newspaper from the sidewalk to her doorstep so she didn’t need to walk so far. Still, he never expected his good deeds would save a life. One winter, he realized she hadn’t been taking the newspapers from her doorstep. Thinking it was odd, he knocked on her door. No answer. Connelly called the police, who discovered the woman had fallen and couldn’t get up. They guessed she’d been there for about three days, disoriented and dehydrated, but she reached a stable condition at the hospital. "Who knows what may have happened if it had been even another day or so?” Connelly tells KSHB.

New roommate

Norma Cook, 89, and Chris Salvatore, 31, became friends living across from each other in a West Hollywood apartment complex. After Cook spent two months in the hospital with pneumonia and breathing problems on top of leukemia, though, doctors said she couldn’t move back without 24-hour care. Her insurance wouldn’t cover it, so Salvatore stepped in. He raised more than $77,000 on a GoFundMe page to cover the costs, but the expenses quickly sucked that money up. Cook doesn’t have children, and Salvatore didn’t want her moving into a facility, so he asked if she wanted to move in with him. She stayed there for about a month, until passing away in his apartment. “The last thing she did was put her arm around my neck —she was so weak, I don’t know how she did it—and pulled me in and kissed me and said, ‘I love you,’” Salvatore tells People. Don't miss these secrets to making a life-long friendship.

Fixer uppers

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One house in a Hamilton Township, New Jersey, neighborhood was a bit of an eyesore. Anne Glancey, a retired teacher, had grown up in the house but blew off her neighbors’ offers to help her fix it up. Then, Glancey received a letter saying her home had code violations that could cost her up to $3,000 per day. She didn’t have money for the repairs or family and friends to lend a hand—except the couple next door. At a loss, she told Adam and Kristin Polhemus, who immediately offered to help. They recruited friends, neighbors, and members of their church to help out, with up to 25 people working at a time. Over the next several weekends, the group painted the house, landscaped the yard, and donated the car. Glancey served homemade orange juice and carrot cake to the workers, making friends in the process. “I think the biggest thing is Anne’s happiness and her kind of restored life,” Adam tells People. “Her outgoingness to other neighbors is based on her house being improved.” Her property violations are now erased.

Home improvement

Code violation threats aren’t the only thing to spark a home makeover. Josh Cyganik overheard some teenagers insulting his neighbor’s house within earshot of the owner, Leonard Bullock, who was 75 at the time. The teens said, “Look at this crappy house—they just need to burn it down,” Cyganik tells TODAY. Bullock looked upset, so Cyganik decided to fight the insults with kindness. He turned to Facebook, rallying up hundreds of volunteers to repaint the house, with Bullock’s permission. Volunteers traveled from as far as Texas to the Pendleton, Oregon, home, transforming it to something Bullock could be proud of. Try these color scheme tricks for your own paint jobs.

Home delivery

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Jordan Walker was outside her El Cajon, California, apartment when a neighbor approached her in a panic, according to FOX 5. The woman asked Walker to call 911 because her daughter was having a baby. Walker’s boyfriend made the call while she followed the mother upstairs, where the daughter was in labor. The baby was already half out, so Walker, a medical assistant who had never helped with baby deliveries or pediatrics, climbed in the tub and guided her through pushing. The baby was blue in the face and wasn’t breathing. Walker realized the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck three times, so she removed it and held the baby upside down until he started making noise. Paramedics took the mom and son to the hospital, and Walker calls little Ezekiel her miracle baby.

SOURCE: RD.com