Students Book

8
Kindness matters
Read and listen
Dummy it
Modal verbs review
Vocabulary: making an effort
a Who are the people and what are they
doing? Read the text to check your ideas.
THE KINDNESS OFFENSIVE
Behind the walls of a house in north
London there are 35 tonnes of toys and
food, piled from floor to ceiling.
The four people who live there have persuaded companies
to give them £250,000 worth of toys and food – for
nothing. And next Monday, they are going to give them
away across north London housing estates from the top
deck of a specially painted double-decker bus.
David Goodfellow and his three friends, Benny Crane,
James Hunter and Callum Teach, call themselves ‘The
Kindness Offensive’. They specialise in carrying out random
acts of kindness for total strangers.
Mr Goodfellow says: ‘I believe that, deep down, most
people are good. They genuinely want to help other people.
They watch programmes about poverty on TV and wonder
how they might be able to help people but it’s all a bit halfhearted.
I feel we live in a climate where everyone is taught
to mistrust each other,’ he adds. ‘We’re told to report our
neighbour’s suspicious behaviour. We’re never encouraged
to help each other.’
According to them, it is remarkably easy to get hold of
items to give away, if you persist. You simply phone endless
manufacturers to see if they are willing to donate something.
‘You have to make a lot of calls,’ Mr Goodfellow explains.
‘Our phone bills are enormous, but eventually you reach
someone sympathetic.’
The four friends started working together a year ago
when they set up a stand to ask passers-by how their lives
could be improved. It was a period of trial and error.
‘At first, people didn’t believe that we were genuine,’
said Mr Crane, a musician. ‘Most people were deeply
suspicious. They didn’t think we’d live up to our
promises.’ But the group soon learned how to do it
properly and convince people of their good intentions.
Their first successful ‘kindness act’ was to persuade
a company to donate a red guitar to a boy who really
wanted one. Since then they have sent someone to see
the Moscow State Circus, fulfilled another person’s
dream of watching a football match at Wembley and,
last October, they distributed more than 25 tonnes of
food to asylum seekers. ‘It is awful to see how asylum
seekers are treated,’ said Mr Hunter, ‘We’ve met people
who are struggling just to live. They desperately want to
contribute to society but they can’t work and they don’t
find it easy even to buy food.’
The Kindness Offensive goes to great lengths to
avoid publicity. But they would like to see more people
performing kind deeds for one another. David’s father,
Michael, is the latest person to sign up. ‘What I’ve learnt
is that kindness is infectious,’ he said. ‘If you do good
deeds, you’ll get a lot out of it and others will follow.’
b
CD2 T18 Read the text again and listen.
Answer the questions.
1 Where do the members of The Kindness
Offensive live?
2 What does their movement do?
3 What does Mr Goodfellow think about how
people are educated?
4 Why was it difficult for The Kindness Offensive
when they started?
5 How does The Kindness Offensive feel about
the situation of asylum seekers?
Discussion box
1 Would you become a member of The
Kindness Offensive? Why / Why not?
2 Remember a time when someone did
something kind for you. What happened?
3 Do you believe that if you do good to
someone, then something good will
happen to you? Can you think of any
examples when this has happened?
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UNIT 8