I posted this experience on JWN years ago, but here it is again for newbies.
When I was going door-to-door a few years before I went to Bethel I met a man who told me he lost his job and didn't have any money for the literature. He said that times were so tough that there was little food in the house to feed his family. His home was a nice one, clean and yard in order. I felt so badly about his situation that I went home and talked with my husband and my mom, who lived next door, asking if we could take the man some food. Both agreed so we raided our freezers and pantry and took the man about four grocery bags of food. He was quite shocked and couldn't thank us enough. My family agreed not to tell anyone in the congregation what we did because we knew it was a "no no" thing to do and were not setting the right example for others in the congregation!
We were in the process of moving to another state and too busy to make a return call and never saw that man again. About two years later, when we were visiting the congregation in the area where we had lived before, a man came up to me and asked if I knew who he was. I said no. Well, he was the fellow we gave food to and he told us he was so impressed by our actions that he agreed to study with the next JWs that came by to see what the religion of JWs was all about and then he became my "brother." I was so happy by this outcome but it crossed my mind then if maybe all JWs were more charitable towards unbelievers we would see more converts, but, of course, I knew the "rice-Christian" counter-argument to that approach.
When I was in Bethel, if there was opportunity, I shared my story with some prominent men in the organization, but doing that didn't change anyone's mind on the matter because being uncharitable towards unbelievers went back to Russell's viewpoint that the only way to help people was by giving away his tracts and Zion's Watchtower free. He taught that this spiritual sustenance would lead unbelievers to become "believers" and then given everlasting life. And that has been the view of the WT religion ever since.
Like BucketShopBill we are trying to atone for the selfish WT beliefs that we taught others by now doing whatever we can to help others if there is a need in a material way. And as we all know, there is more happiness in giving than receiving.
As a side note, the day we returned from Bethel, worn out from the trip, a young JW woman showed up at our door with food for our dinner, the only one to do so or even to show concern for our well-being, and to us her actions were so special. That was over twenty-years ago, and, to this day, we love her as a daughter. Actually she was an elder's daughter, but her mother was Lutheran. This young lady was like her mother who was such a charitable giver to everyone including Witnesses. In time this young woman left JWs, which upset her father greatly. She left because she was gay (which her father never knew of even to the day he died), and because she just didn't believe that God would eventually kill everybody on the earth except JWs!