Kindness matters.
It certainly did to young Wesley Donaldson of New Zealand who while visiting Lake Cowichan lost his wallet in front of Ice Cream Impossible Deep Fried Ice Cream on South Shore Road. A young teenager discovered the wallet outside the shop shortly after it was dropped on Thursday, July 20, and handed it in to Shannon Page who was working that day and has been a part time employee since June 29 of this year.
“It was really nice because the young man had hundreds of dollars in there,” said Page. “You always worry, but there is actually a lot of good people in this world, we just hear more about the negative than the positive.”
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A couple of hours later Donaldson called the shop in a panic. Upon discovering that his wallet had been found he let Page know that he would call her back. A little bit later Donaldson’s aunt phoned and Page soon discovered that Donaldson and his friends were already boarding the ferry to head back to Surrey, and were unable to double back to Lake Cowichan.
“When they couldn’t come back down, I told Bev the owner that I would just bring the wallet home and arrange to get it couriered to the young man,” said Page. “I called all the courier companies that Thursday night before I reached back out to his aunt. In the old days you used to be able to get something couriered overnight but after making the calls, I found out that just wasn’t possible.”
Page called back Donaldson’s aunt to relay that the soonest she could get the wallet couriered would be the following Monday, which would be too late as Donaldson and his friends would be travelling back to New Zealand on Sunday, July 23.
Not willing to leave Donaldson in a bind, Page made arrangements with Donaldson’s aunt to meet her at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal on the Saturday morning. Page bought her walk-on ticket, then walked off and connected with the young man to hand him back his wallet. They were insistent on paying for Page’s ferry ticket.
“It cost me $17, and of course they said they would pay my way. I didn’t really care about that, I just wanted the young man to have his wallet back,” said Page.
Donaldson handed Page a small envelope that read ‘Thank you so much’ on it. Page said she was in no rush to open it, as it was only supposed to contain the $40 to cover her cost, but when she finally did she discovered there was a $100 bill inside. She was taken aback by the generosity.
“The biggest reward was having the experience to do it; he was just so happy to get it back. It was the sweetest thing, when I got off the ferry he had the biggest smile on his face, he shook my hand and his aunt gave me a hug. That was the best part for me, it was just wonderful,” said Page. “It was just something nice to do. If it was my grandchild, I would hope that someone would do something similar for them. It’s just the way I’m built. I was raised by the pay it forward system — my dad was always doing stuff like that. I feel if you can help someone, do it. Kindness matters, and that’s the one thing that this world is really lacking, it really does make all the difference.”