The Power of Kindness
Leo Kellner loves helping people in the sweetest way possible-by baking them cakes and pies. The 99-year-old man from Hastings, Nebraska, ____1____ his wife in 2012. They had been together for 72 years.
Since his wife passed away, Kellner took up ____2____ as a way to give back to the community. “I didn’t know what to do with myself ,” Kellner said. “I was ____3____ all the time, and I thought I’d better do something that could make me get out of the ____4____ and be good to the community as well, and that’s how it started.”
That first year, Kellner made 144 pies for people in need. He ____5____ community organizations to let them know he’d like to connect with families having a ____6____ time. Kellner then started reaching out to those families, getting to know them, and baking up some lovely cakes and pies during their time of need.
What he did made him ____7____ known around the communities. And whenever people met him, they showed their ____8____ to him.
“I regard everybody as a ____9____ - I love everybody even people that gave me an unpleasant time when things were going hard for me.
Born in 1918, Kellner lived ____10____ the Great Depression, when his family lost their farm. Kellner had to move from state to state as a teenager looking for possible ____11____ on farms to make a living. ”I knew what it was to be ____12____, and a lot of times we just had vegetables and flour mixed up together;“ he said. ”So as long as I can do it, I will lend a helping hand.“
And Kellner’s made quite a/an ____13____. ”I’ve got friends from all over,“ he said. ”I’ve gotten thank-you cards from Alaska“. Through his baking, Kellner has helped the ____14____ a lot.
____15____ is powerful. Children begin to learn to cook so they can spread ____16____ just as he does. Kellner believes that this interest to give to everyone just might be the secret to a long, ____17____ life.
Life constantly presents us with opportunities to take an extra step or do a kind deed that will make a ____18____. And the wonderful thing is that as we do, it changes things for the ____19____ for us too. Kindness is also a kind of noble cycle. It twice blessed; it blesses him who ____20____, and him who receives.