Random acts of kindness

Young Chang

Catherine Ryan Hyde wonders how her book dazzled Hollywood. School

districts she can understand. Parents of young children and the children

themselves -- they’re capable of hope and uncompensated kindness.

But Hollywood?

There’s only one explanation: optimism.

The story of 12-year-old Trevor McKinney and his idea to do good

things for three people so those people can, instead of paying him back,

pay him forward by doing nice things for three others, “Pay it Forward”

is optimistic.

The virtue is so rare in Hollywood, it’s nearly alternative. It

sparked a cord among top entertainment executives and actors Helen Hunt,

Kevin Spacey and Haley Joel Osment, who will star in the movie version of

the story opening Oct. 20.

“It’s a little different from a lot of what’s being put out in

Hollywood right now,” said Hyde, who will sign copies of her book Sunday

at Borders Books, Music & Cafe at South Coast Plaza. “It kind of shows

people stepping up and being decent, and I can’t help wondering maybe

we’ve had enough of the other.”

Some schools around the country have caught onto the good-deed streak,

thinking up ideas to pay nice things forward themselves. The Santa

Barbara Community Foundation has invited all Santa Barbara County

elementary and middle schools to come up with their own versions of the

project. The first 15 schools to respond will win a cash endowment.

The Pay It Forward Foundation, started by Hyde, provides educational

materials and funds for middle school students nationwide who qualify in

trying to develop their own Pay It Forward assignment.

Though local schools in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District

haven’t incorporated the book or its concepts into its curriculum,

district officials respond optimistically to learning more about it.

“We’d have to figure out where it would fit into our curriculum,” said

Peggy Anatol, director of secondary curriculum and K-12 assessment for

the district, “But it sounds interesting. If we did three good things for

others, the world would be a better place.”

The story began, appropriately enough, with a random act of kindness.

Twenty years ago, Hyde was stranded in a bad part of Los Angeles at night

with a car fire going strong and no one around to help.

Two strangers pulled up, extinguished the fire and drove away before

she could thank them.

“I could never really pay them back or thank them,” Hyde, 45, said.

“So the only thing I could really do was look for somebody else to help.”

She kept her eyes open on the freeway for someone who might need a

hand. Then she got to thinking, wouldn’t this be an interesting force in

the world? One, and then 10, and then maybe 10,000 people just wandering

around owing favors but to no one in particular?

In 1991, the business where Hyde worked as a pastry chef went out of

business. Unemployed for a few months, she woke up one morning

remembering a promise she had made to herself -- to one day write a novel

if she had time.

The book is dedicated to Vance Hyde, the author’s mother, who provided

shelter and monetary help when her daughter was a low-income struggling

writer. The family’s financial situation is dramatically different today,

especially with the book’s current connection to Hollywood.

Vance Hyde said she thinks the success of the book may perhaps be

linked to someone doing something good for them.

“We never thought it would be like this,” she said from her home in

Cambria, Calif.

The little red log cabin is where the mother-daughter pair sit on the

front porch and watch the whales go by. Catherine Hyde said she will

never move, despite her recent financial success, because this is home.

And her life, as it is now, can safely be called a dream come true.

“I think it’s a really good example of how, when you do what you think

you were put here to do, this is kind of the reward that people get when

they follow their dreams,” Hyde said.

FYI

* WHAT: Catherine Ryan Hyde will sign copies of “Pay It Forward”

* WHEN: Noon, Sunday

* WHERE: Borders Books, Music & Cafe at South Coast Plaza, 3333 Bear

St., Costa Mesa

* COST: Free

* CALL: (714) 556-1185