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What's a good and non patronising way to help my neighbour out (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago by Noedel@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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My neighbour has a cat called Stevie. Stevie hangs out with us a lot and we look after him when my neighbour is away.

Yesterday we found Stevie very unwell in our garden. We took him to the neighbour and she immediately rushed him to the vet.

She mentioned the vet was 200 dollars which was a big unexpected expense for her. Her son's birthday is on Monday and she won't be able to do anything for his birthday now.

My wife and I are fortunate enough for 200 dollars to not be a lot of money for us and we want to help, but I'm unsure how.

One option would be that we leave her a little card with 100 dollars and write that we wanted to help because we care about Stevie too.

Another idea is we ask her to do some gardening for us (that's her job, and we're too busy to do it ourselves right now).

I don't want her to feel patronised or awkward about any of this... Happy to take insights.

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[–] taladar@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago

Maybe use that fact that you found Stevie in your garden somehow? Something along the lines of "after we brought him to you we had a good look at our garden and we want to make some changes to make it easier to watch him when he plays out there" as an excuse for a short-term job for her perhaps?

Or maybe offer your own home or garden for a birthday event for the son with the excuse that the cat needs rest after such an incident and a party would be better placed elsewhere?