Perfect Strangers

Why a grieving widow, a Minnesota high school, and a Nebraska online community are devoted to helping people they’ve never met.

WHEN TYRA DAMM lost her husband, Steve Damm, to brain cancer in 2009 after 15 years of marriage, her heart broke for herself and her kids, then ages four and eight. And in the opaque blur of that first year, one day stood out: his birthday.

It was the hardest day of them all, full of unbelievable grief. Almost out of desperation, she hatched a plan for Steve’s next birthday. She would use it to help people she’d never met.

On November 4, 2011, Tyra asked friends in her Texas community to perform random acts of kindness in Steve’s honor. Hundreds of people responded. A movement—and the hashtag #dammkind—was born.

In the years since, #dammkind has been passed along and expanded, moving people Tyra has never met to do good deeds: buying coffee or ice cream for a person in line behind them, leaving a note of gratitude and a large tip for a waiter, baking cookies for Meals on Wheels.

“November 4,” says Tyra, a 46-yearold middle school teacher and parenting columnist for the Dallas Morning News, “is my favorite day of the year.”