Faith in Facebook and Sarah
My daughter's scooter went missing last night. Sixty pounds, bought with her own money, from her own little business — the kind of purchase that means something because she actually worked for it. It had been left in a neighbour's front garden, and by the evening, it was just gone.
I didn't know the right protocol. Do you call the police over a £60 scooter? Do you knock on doors? Do you just walk the streets hoping to spot it? In the end I did the thing that felt most obviously useful — I posted on our local community Facebook group.
The comments came quickly. People were properly outraged on her behalf — a little girl's scooter, one she'd worked hard to buy, just taken from a garden. Strangers, most of whom I've never met, genuinely annoyed about it on her behalf. Some offered up their own kids' old scooters, just in case hers didn't turn up. One woman wrote that it was such a shame, what an amazing girl, earning her own money for her own scooter — and that she'd happily put some money towards a new one if others chipped in too.
When I first suggested posting on the community Facebook page, my husband tilted his head toward next door before I'd even finished the sentence. "You need to ask Sarah," he said.
He was right. It was Sarah who commented on the post to say she was our neighbour — and that's how the person who found the scooter knew exactly where to bring it. Sarah's that kind of neighbour. The one you can knock on for a bag of sugar, the one we swap cake recipes and baking tips with. Turns out she's also the one who gets your scooter back.
Twelve hours after I posted, someone knocked on her door.
Faith in humanity: restored. Faith in the local Facebook group, of all things: also restored.
