Snowed-in strangers surprised with shovelled driveways in Halifax

A random act of kindness has inspired people across the Halifax region to pay it forward by surprising strangers with shovelled driveways after a winter storm dumped heavy snow across Nova Scotia. 

Jake MacKinnon, a Halifax man who shovels driveways to make some extra cash, has been trying to keep up with requests for his service after one woman decided to pay for a stranger's driveway to be cleared Monday.

"She asked if she could send me some money to prepay for a stranger's snow removal at her expense," said MacKinnon, who is usually accompanied on the job by his dog, Max.

The woman, Terri-Linh Hua-Ayles, had booked MacKinnon ahead of the winter storm that dropped upward of 50 centimetres of snow across Nova Scotia on Sunday night.

But before the storm, Hua-Ayles had to cancel — her home had flooded and she and her family had to suddenly move out.

"I couldn't hire him and I felt bad," she said. "So I just decided, hey, why not do something nice for a stranger?"

MacKinnon said he was inspired by the generosity.

He wrote a post on Facebook asking people to nominate two people who deserved to have their driveway cleared — one at the expense at Hua-Ayles, and the other at his own expense.

"I actually had a lot of people message me. The feedback was unbelievable with how many people wanted to join us," he said.

"I probably had at least 10 people message me wanting to send money to shovel random people's properties, people that deserved it."

By Monday afternoon, 11 strangers had donated money to help 11 others. 

"Everybody is deserving to have it done, of course. I just wish I could [help] everybody, but I'm only one man and my dog doesn't really help too much. He just watches," MacKinnon said with a laugh.

Hua-Ayles said she didn't expect her random act of kindness to catch on the way it did.

"It made me incredibly happy to know that there are still people out there who are cool with helping strangers," she said. "Strangers helping strangers, basically." 

MacKinnon said he will continue offering his snow removal services this winter, and he hopes more people will consider paying it forward.