The Saturday before the hurricane my family and I found ourselves lost in northern Alabama and unable to find a motel to stay in. Sunday we finally found an open room in a hotel in Starkville, Mississippi, the home of Mississippi State University. Starkville proved to be a very welcoming and understanding community. Daily church groups brought food and clothes to the hotel for my family. College students bought us modest, but kind, toys that they picked out in WalMart. At the time I was 15 years old, and not very receptive to all of the \"charity\" but then something happened that had even me teary eyed. While driving around looking for a clothing store we noticed another car seemed to be following us. Sure enough when we parked at the store, an older woman got out of the car, came over to us and offered her house to us. We graciously declined, and she said she would keep in touch. She found us in the store and gave both my brother and I a wallet with $20 in it. My mom couldn\'t keep herself from crying at the kindness of the lady. She returned to the store about 10 minutes latter with an employee from Home Depot, she told us if there was anything we needed from Home Depot, to find this man and she would pay for it all. She then explained to us that her husband owned half of the town, and that if there was anything we needed all we had to do was call. They let us stay in an apartment for a few weeks for no problem, and had an orthodontist fix my braces without any charge. It was in Starkville that I realized how immature it is to be too proud to accept kindness from others.