From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is My Unsung Hero, stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

My Unsung Hero story is from a doctor I heard over 30 years ago.

He's an unsung hero because he rarely got any recognition for his huge heart and his unselfish action.

You mean the world to me and I can't thank you enough.

Today's story comes from Kim Perlack.

In 2009, Kim had just finished grad school and was juggling roles as an

adjunct music professor at three different colleges while also working for a couple of nonprofits.

Running from place to place made it hard to feel like she was a part of any kind of community.

It was tiring and a little disheartening.

One morning, I'm going to one of the campuses and I've got a guitar and I've got two bags in each hand.

And I'm walking down the path to the music building and I trip.

And my lunch, which is chilly in a plastic container, flew out of my bag and hit the pavement

and exploded everywhere. And I looked around and I was totally alone. And I just stopped

and I had this moment and I said to myself, what am I doing? Why am I doing

this with my life? And the thing is that I didn't know was that I wasn't alone because there's

this wonderful woman in the registrar's office and she had seen the entire thing from her window and she must have

figured out who I was and she took a break and drove out to go to the place everybody loved

like everybody's favorite lunch place and and bring me back this feast.

And so when I came into the little music adjunct office, there was a bag on the table.

It had a sandwich. It had snacks. It had a drink. It had a coffee. And there was a little note on there, and it said,

Dear Dr. Perlach, I saw you come in this

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