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Small acts of goodness build a community

We often hear that it's the little things in life that mean a lot. Holding a door for a stranger, letting someone with just a few items go ahead of you at the checkout counter in the grocery, picking up an item that the person walking in front of you has dropped - well, the list is endless. But these small gestures of concern are reminders, lessons by example, that we are all connected and depend on each other for a community to thrive.

A few days ago, I was taught another lesson by one of the trustees of our Mount Prospect community as I waited for my son to arrive at the Metra station. I watched him leave the train and begin his nightly walk home. Dressed in a suit and carrying his briefcase, he didn't see me, but I watched him cross Northwest Highway and walk past the fire station. I noticed a discarded plastic bag that the wind had blown into the bushes. My village trustee also saw it and stopped, walked 15 feet off course, pulled the bag out of the bushes and continued his journey home.

I'm sure no one other than I observed this small gesture, but to me it was another lesson taught by a man who has devoted well over two decades of service to our community. The bushes were on public land, not his front lawn, but that didn't concern him. What concerned him was making Mount Prospect a community to be proud of, and it was all of our front lawns. It's the little things often taught when no one appears to be watching. Thank you, Paul Hoefert.

Gerald Wester

Mount Prospect

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