I have a close childhood friend. He spent the last eight years attending night______ to get his bachelor’s degree (学士学位) while also doing a full-time job. Last month, after years of late nights and weekends of studying, he______ graduated.

He ______ in our hometown after high school, ______ most of his friends, myself included, left long ago for other states for university and jobs. Over time, work, families, and other ______ have made it difficult for us all to be ______ in our hometown at the same time.

I put forward a wonderful idea: plan a weekend that we’d all be ______ to fly back to our hometown to surprise him and celebrate his ______. It was so much fun ______ the affair. The bait (诱饵): his mom told him that he was going to have ______ with just his grandparents to celebrate. Little did he know that the family dinner would ______ a 20-person affair with friends from all around the states. I got to ______ a cake so that everyone ______ could enjoy it.

When the guest of honour arrived to “dinner with the ______”, he was greatly surprised and told us it made him feel special. The “white lie” dinner plan was a great ______ for me.

I was thirty-four the first time I saw the real Santa.

My husband had lost his job earlier, and we _________ expenses everywhere we could . He’d been hunting for jobs and _________ often, but the process was slow.

One afternoon, we were feeling particularly _________, so we decided to treat ourselves to a meal outside. It was a(n) _________ for us to get out of the house, too. Plus, the pizzas were _________ our names in the restaurant.

When we got to the counter to pay, the employee said our meal had been covered by the truck ahead. While people did this sometimes, and it was always a lovely _________, this time we really didn’t want to just take the gift and leave. Instead, we attempted to keep the _________ going by offering to pay for the order for the car behind us.

“No need, that man just paid for everyone in line.” We had no choice but to get _________ with the fact that a stranger had just done something kind for us, and there was no way to _________ the kindness.

Looking toward the truck, I thought I could see the man’s __________ in the driver’s side mirror. He stuck his hand out the window and gave a __________ wave, which __________ reminded me of the scene where Santa was flying away into the night, gloved hand __________ in a goodbye wave.

My husband found a wonderful job shortly afterwards. We’ve gone on to do __________ acts of kindness for others, remembering the effect this __________ meal had on us when Santa drove a truck with a big smile and a little wave.

“Hi!” Steller shouted. “I’m driving around giving free haircuts. Do you want one right now?”

The man looked to be in his 60s, heavyset and missing a few teeth. “Actually,” he said, “I have a wedding to go to. I was really _______ to get a haircut.”

The man, named Edward, _______ sat on Steller’s red chair. She began to trim his curly graying hair. Then he began to tell her about his childhood, about moving here to be closer to his adult children, and how he still talks to his mom every day. After the haircut, Edward looked in a mirror, exclaiming “I look _______! I’ll remember to put my _______ in next time. I look better with teeth!”

To date, Steller has given 30 or so such haircuts. These clients all live on the margins (边缘), and she is keenly aware of the _______ of her clean-up job. “It’s more than a haircut,” she says. “I want it to be a gateway—to show value and _______.”

Steller knows that a haircut can change a life. As a teen, she suffered from a(n) _______ which was so severe that her hair _______ drastically. Seeing this, her mother arranged for Steller’s first professional haircut. “To sit down and have somebody talk to me like a person and not just an illness, it helped me feel _______ about and less alone,” she says.

After that, Steller decided to have her own salon so she could help people feel the ________ she’d felt that day. Not long after finishing cosmetology (美容术) school, she began her Red Chair Project, ________ out to people on the streets. Although she can’t ________ their problems by giving free haircuts, she believes it might help them feel less ________ for a moment.

Steller listens to people’s ________ of loss and struggle to get back on their feet. The attention apparently ________. When she was cutting a woman’s hair one day, someone drove by and yelled, “You look amazing!” The woman in the chair beamed. “I’m not ________,” she exclaimed. “I thought I was invisible. Look, people see me!”

A Branch of the Red Chair Project is the Steller Kindness Project, in which people who ________ acts of kindness are invited for a free makeover (美容) at Steller’s salon. In exchange, they tell their stories, which Steller ________ on her website. Her hope is that by reading about kind acts, others will be ________ to spread their own.

So far, it’s working. And it all began with a(n) ________ in simple acts of kindness, such as a free haircut.