One lone tree stands in the yard of Colleen Ladd, the Mossey Library circulation assistant. A carpet of leaves coats her lawn almost as soon as she rakes them.
This season alone, Ladd has stayed up late after coming home from work, filling 74 bags to the brim with leaves — to no avail, she said. Ladd said for her, the process was “exasperating.”
After four straight evenings of raking, Ladd decided she would wait to finish cleaning her yard.
“I’ll get them later,” Ladd said she thought.
However, Ladd didn’t get the chance to clean her yard later because, on Friday, Nov. 13, a mysterious “good Samaritan” took the task off Ladd’s shoulders.
The day seemed just like any other. But then, between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m., while Ladd was at work, the good Samaritan showed up.
“They raked my entire yard, cleaned out all my flower beds and everything, and left me with big piles of leaves. All I had to do was bag,” Ladd said.
This act of kindness allowed Ladd to bag her leaves during the day, which she has been unable to do all season. Instead of coming home and bagging the leaves by streetlight, Ladd said coming home to the majority of the work already done really made her day.
“I just was smiling all day after that,” Ladd said.
No one has come forward to take ownership of the good deed, according to Ladd, though she said she has a sneaking suspicion her four neighbors, who are students at Hillsdale College, had something to do with her yard being raked.
“It really touched me because it was such a big job,” Ladd said.
Ladd said she reached out to The Collegian in order to share the story of the mystery yard worker and express her gratitude.
“I figured if it is a college student, this would be a great way just to say thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart for doing such a wonderful thing for me. It meant a lot,” Ladd said. “It really touched me.”
Students can join A Few Good Men, an on-campus organization, to help members of the community in ways similar to Ladd’s good Samaritan.
Junior Blake Hawkins, president of A Few Good Men, said that to the best of his knowledge, his group did not have a hand in Ladd’s good deed.
“Either way, when it comes down to it, in my opinion, it’s not really important who does it,” Hawkins said. “It’s more so important that it gets done.”
Hawkins added that one of the obligations of being part of any community is being “willing to go and help other people out,” which is why he said volunteering is crucial.
“I think we all have an obligation to continue to give into bettering the lives of the people around us,” Hawkins said.
