Practice Random Acts of Kindness
Today Vegabula reopens. And with it, so many stories and gestures that don't ask permission to mean something.
A few days ago I spoke on the phone with the project lead for Vegabula. His voice sounded different than usual.
He said: "Fabio, I'm happy. The school told us clearly that these kids would have had a hard time finding anywhere else that would take them in."
I paused for a moment. Because the internship is a requirement, part of the curriculum. But finding a place that understands, that protects, that truly teaches a trade to someone starting from a more fragile place — that's not written anywhere. It has to be built.
And I remembered a phrase someone wrote, years ago, on a paper napkin.
Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
Without calculation, without return, without anyone needing to see them for them to be real.
Today — June 15th — Vegabula reopens.
It's the training restaurant of the Hospitality Institute of Brunico: during the school year, students cook and serve real customers. Then summer comes, the school closes, and the restaurant closes with it.
So this year too, for one month — from mid-June to mid-July — it will stay open. And we're among those who helped keep the lights on.
In the kitchen and dining room are students on internship, some of whom started further behind than others. What matters is that they're there. That they cook, serve, learn.
Amid contracts, numbers, deadlines, reports — the work nobody sees — it's easy to lose sight of what's actually underneath all this.
There are people. Stories. And there are parents who, maybe for the first time, see someone believe in their kids.
(And I think, as a new parent myself, that there's no bigger gift than that.)
So maybe that phrase, tossed off somewhere, wasn't about pointless gestures. It was about gestures that don't ask permission to mean something.
The meaning comes later, sideways. Maybe in a phone call telling you someone was welcomed. Maybe in a hand that, steady for the first time on a ladle three weeks ago, doesn't shake anymore. Maybe in a kid telling you: "You know, I wish this didn't have to end so soon."
Vegabula opens today. If you're around Brunico, you'll find our kids there — Monday to Friday, at lunchtime.
Have a good summer.
Fabio Bertocchi
