Being nice

US: It’s hard to say anything positive about the recession. But the financial crisis has brought out the best in some people. In the US, a number of businesses are offering their services free of charge to the unemployed.

One of these is the day spa and salon Visage á Visage in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A frequent customer called the spa to say that she could no longer afford to keep her appointment because her restaurant and real estate businesses were badly hit by the recession.

“She was crying and embarrassed,” Tina Stoltzfus, one of the spa’s owners, told The New York Times. “Of course, it broke our hearts, so we asked ourselves what we could do.” The spa owners — Stoltzfus and her parents — decided to give free haircuts to people who were unemployed or in financial trouble because of the recession. They even provide transportation to the spa.

"It broke our hearts, so we asked ourselves what we could do," says Tina Stoltzfus.

When the local media began covering the story, owners of other businesses contacted them. A number of these businesses, including a dog-grooming service, restaurants and a comedy club, began to provide free service to the jobless. “It really blew up,” Stoltzfus said.

John Challenger,chief executive of the outplacement agency Challenger, Gray & Christmas , is not surprised by the trend. “There’s more empathy out there because everyone has friends and family who are caught up in this,” Challenger explains. “There isn’t the stigma that there used to be, because there’s so much no-fault job loss.”

Gary Donlin, who owns the Quail Hollow Golf and Country Club in Oakham, Massachusetts, offers unemployed people free golfing on weekdays. Donlin says he had noticed that membership in the club was going down, and he wanted to do something for his regular customers. “These were the people who had given us a job for 18 years. If they didn’t have a job, what kind of people would we be if we didn’t help them?” he asks.