I was on vacation when it happened. It was a message sent to me regarding a well-known local man and his family who had lost their home and just about everything they owned due to fire. I suppose this landed in my inbox because I’m a guy who has places where people can live.

Since at the moment, I was at 10,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, there wasn’t anything immediate I could do but send the APB out to the Hometown crew. Meanwhile, the community had rallied promptly and the family was in good hands – they just needed a new place to call home and Hometown was on the case.

A week had passed then good news came. A single family home that a client of ours purchased to renovate and lease was just about rent-ready. Our displaced family liked the home and location, had a lease appointment setup for the same day and all that was left to do was get keys made and the house cleaned; all at the very last minute.

Working in property management, it can be difficult at times since most of the situations crossing your path are problems. It’s quite typical to wake up in the morning a few hours before you planned because one of those problems had worked its way into your mind and wouldn’t get out.

This morning was one of those mornings, but different. I checked my email before going to bed the night before – sometimes you just can’t resist. The content of one email message entered my mind many hours before I wished to crawl out of bed and was from the person who cleaned that house just before our family was to start moving in. Her note was to tell me that due to the circumstances, the cleaning service would be free of charge.

It’s unclear if that free cleaning was to help Hometown, help our client or help the family; perhaps all of the above. To me, it was the gesture. It was a woman who took several hours out of her day to do something good for somebody, for nothing in return. That’s what woke me up early this morning, reflecting on the good that was done and prompting me to roll out of bed and write about it.

Do something good for somebody today. Big or small, for somebody you know, somebody you don’t, a friend, your spouse, a colleague. The fact that you will get something in return or not doesn’t matter. Because you always do in some way. And because good deeds do indeed go unpunished.