The Good Suspended was inspired by the Italian tradition of ‘caffe sospeso’ (‘suspended coffee’: or a cup of coffee paid for in advance as an anonymous act of charity). 

Now ordinary citizens are doing extraordinary things to help people during the coronavirus pandemic. 

These are simple yet extraordinary acts like: cancelling rent for tenants, buying an extra bag of groceries for those in need, preserving the memory of those who died alone, and sending letters to a mother separated from her newborn child. Coronavirus has made it possible for thousands of ordinary people to become the unsung heroes of this crisis. Every week we’ll bring you new episodes, two minutes of stories that are changing lives and inspiring many more.

Two amazing stories. The first is of Nancy, who runs a small restaurant in Kenya. Everybody calls her Mama. The second features Mr. Powles, a man delivering hundreds of meals to poor children in Grimsby, UK.

In this episode, we hear amazing stories of children and young people fighting for justice, raising funds, and inventing solutions for ventilators and hand-washing. So if they tell you ‘don’t be a child!’ it’s probably a good thing. Maybe we should all be more like children, embracing humanity and finding solutions to needs and problems.

The most familiar and yet alien object – a face mask – can save many lives. In this episode we feature ‘masks suspended’ in baskets in Italy, the tale of an Arkansas farmer sending his last mask to doctors and nurses in NYC, and a story that shows how a mask changed the life of a girl in Rio.