{"id":20253,"date":"2022-12-19T09:22:03","date_gmt":"2022-12-19T14:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cubesmart.com\/blog\/?p=20253"},"modified":"2024-04-19T15:09:27","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T19:09:27","slug":"kindness-wins-susan-thompson-gaines-and-cubesmart-partner-up-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cubesmart.com\/blog\/news\/kindness-wins-susan-thompson-gaines-and-cubesmart-partner-up-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Kindness Wins: Susan Thompson-Gaines and CubeSmart Partner Up Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cubesmart.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picture1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20255\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong><em>Susan with Stephanie&#8217;s daughters, prepping for their annual Kindness Yard Sale.<\/em><\/strong><br>Photo Credit: Stephanie Richman.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>They say the sequel isn\u2019t as good as the original. But when it comes to works of kindness and charity, that\u2019s never true. You may remember a story we posted last year about Susan Thompson-Gaines. She made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/yardsale-kindness-activist-virginia\/2021\/09\/22\/ab87a694-1bba-11ec-bcb8-0cb135811007_story.html\">national news headlines<\/a> with her work as a \u201cKindness Activist.\u201d Each year, her Kindness Yard Sale raises money to support acts of kindness around her community and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Susan\ndepends on charitable donations of toys, clothes, appliances, and other items\nto sell or give away during her annual sale, so she can use the money earned to\nfund acts of kindness all year long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Susan\nran out of space for her yard sale items, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cubesmart.com\/blog\/self-storage\/news\/cubesmart-donates-a-storage-unit-for-a-good-cause\/\">CubeSmart jumped in to help with the\ndonation of a storage unit<\/a>. And the results were inspiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A Little Storage Goes a Long Way <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cubesmart.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picture2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20256\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong><em>Susan and friends were able to raise twice the money this year with added storage from CubeSmart.<\/em><\/strong><br>Photo Credit: Stephanie Richman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2021, Susan was doing the best she could with the space she had. When Stephanie Richman, Susan\u2019s friend, and fellow Kindness Activist, contacted CubeSmart, Susan was using every spare inch of her own home and basement to store donated items for her Kindness Yard Sale. This year, the game has changed. With the donation of a CubeSmart storage unit in 2021, Susan was able to execute some truly incredible acts of kindness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDue in\nlarge part to CubeSmart\u2019s support, we were able to raise twice as much money\nthis year, because we had twice as much sell,\u201d said Stephanie. Not only did the sale generate twice as much for charity, but the free space in Susan\u2019s basement was used for an incredible humanitarian cause \u2014 to shelter and house Afghan and Ukrainian families displaced by poverty and war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;My partner and I may not have a lot in relation to what many American families have in terms of wealth, but we have a solid roof over our heads, food to eat, and even some additional room,\u201d said Susan. \u201cIt only seemed logical to welcome people into our home who fled from devastation and war in their countries.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;So, when I heard that refugees (first from Afghanistan and later from Ukraine) who recently arrived needed a place to stay, we raised our hands. It was an honor to welcome them to the USA and help them get their footing in our country.\u201d&nbsp;  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cubesmart.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picture3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20257\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong><em>Susan&#8217;s partner, David Gaines, unloading donations at their CubeSmart storage unit.<\/em><\/strong><br>Photo Credit: Stephanie Richman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to hosting refugee families, Susan was able to extend even more hospitality to those in need. With the additional funding earned, she and her friends were able to feed families in need, pay for hotel rooms so parents could stay near their hospitalized children, purchase athletic equipment for children to participate in sports, throw parties in local memory care facilities for residents, and so much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thekindnessactivist.org\/\">The Santa Project<\/a>, a Kindness Activist annual event, just opened for a third year. &nbsp;Money raised at the Kindness Yard Sale will be used to grant gifts to nearly 200 children who wrote letters to Santa from Susan\u2019s home.&nbsp; <br> <br> This project has become so major that Woman\u2019s Day Magazine even picked up for their December holiday issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Genuine\nCare in Action<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cubesmart.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picture4.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20258\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong><em>Genuine Care in Action! Stephanie Richman and David Gaines get ready to load donations with use of the free CubeSmart storage van.<\/em><\/strong><br>Photo Credit: Stephanie Richman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A cornerstone pillar of CubeSmart\u2019s brand and business practices is <strong><em>genuine care<\/em><\/strong>. That means a greeting and a smile when customers walk into our stores, getting to know them, understanding their needs, and helping them out when they need a resolution to a problem. Working with Susan framed the practice of genuine care in an unexpected and rewarding new way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dawn\nWalters-Smith was the CubeSmart Senior District Manager in Arlington where\nSusan lives and had heard stories of Susan\u2019s work before. It wasn\u2019t until she\nmet Susan and witnessed her work firsthand that she understood the magnitude of\npaying it forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur short\nconversation one afternoon at the Arlington store showed just how tirelessly\nshe works to organize and keep her kindness movement rolling,\u201d said Dawn. \u201cSeeing\nthe items being donated for yard sales and hearing about the donations for the\nLittle Yellow Pantry took my breath away and inspired me to show a little more\nkindness in my own community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it didn\u2019t stop with just being awe-inspired, Dawn became a kindness activist in her own small way. \u201cFrom purchasing just a few extra\u2019s in my shopping for donations at my local elementary school to paying it forward in the line at Dunkin\u2019, the feeling of being part of a larger experience for someone was indescribable,\u201d Dawn said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cSeeing the company that I am so proud to be a part of support such an organization makes me CubeSmart Proud!\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Paying\nit Forward in 2023<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cubesmart.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picture5.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20259\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong><em>Susan hands out tins of popcorn on World Kindness Day, November 13, 2022.<\/em><\/strong><br>Photo credit: Kindness Activist Blog, Susan Thompson-Gaines<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>CubeSmart\nwill be partnering with Susan and her fellow Kindness Activists again in 2023\nto continue with the donation of a storage unit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s amazing\nwhat a little <em>genuine care <\/em>and a little more storage space can do to\nimprove hundreds of lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For more\ninformation about recent projects and kindness activism, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/kindnessactivist.blogspot.com\/\">Susan\u2019s blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They say the sequel isn\u2019t as good as the original. But when it comes to works of kindness and charity, that\u2019s never true. You may remember a story we posted last year about Susan Thompson-Gaines. She made national news headlines with her work as a \u201cKindness Activist.\u201d Each year, her Kindness Yard Sale raises money [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":20255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1487,1605],"tags":[1747,1524,1748],"class_list":["post-20253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-self-storage","tag-kindness-activist","tag-storage-unit","tag-susan-thompson-gaines"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>Kindness Wins: Susan Thompson-Gaines and CubeSmart Partner Up Again | The Storage Space<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Susan Thompson-Gaines, the Kindness Activist and CubeSmart, paired up last year for a good cause and the results were inspiring.\" 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