This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

Some years ago, a homeless woman was being discharged at a Philadelphia hospital.

On her way out, nurses noticed the woman was wearing flip-flops.

It was January, and Januaries in Philadelphia can get very cold.

Nursing director Julie Munger had an idea.

Her daughter was a basketball player and had left a bunch of old sneakers in the trunk of Julie's car.

Would one of those pairs fit the homeless woman?

They went out and took a look,

but the shoes were all a size and a half too small for the woman's feet.

That's when, Julie told a reporter from WTXF TV, things took an unexpected turn.

So as I was leaving, she's like, your shoes are nice. I said, well, what size are your feet? And she's like a 10.

Julie looked down at her own shoes.

They were a size 10.

They were also super comfortable, and she loved

them. Like, these are a 10, do you want these? And she just

cried and thought it would be great. So,

I just gave her the shoes. Julie

unlaced her shoes and handed them to the other woman.

Perhaps you've had experiences like this yourself. Our sister show, My Unsung Hero, often features like this where people reach out to help one another in unusual acts of generosity.

But the reason these stories stand out is because they're at odds with the way most of us

feel treated as we go about our days.

We don't feel seen and heard.

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