Peninsula Heating & Air, White Marsh, will be “ambushing” one lucky local family next week with a free heat pump system to celebrate National Random Acts of Kindness Day. At 8 o’clock next Wednesday morning, a phone call from PHA staff members will be placed to the unsuspecting prize winner, with the call broadcast live on WXGM-FM.

The giveaway is an extension of the company’s Project Comfort & Joy, where PHA installs, free of charge, a complete heating and cooling system in the contest winners’ homes. This is usually done around the holiday season.

Through that contest, Karen Smith, who owns PHA with her husband Steve, said the company has become acutely aware of the needs of residents in the community, including the 2015 Project Comfort & Joy winner Joleen Wentworth.

“After having worked full-time for over 30 years, unexpectedly, she lost her job,” Karen Smith said. A widow, Wentworth depended on her full-time income and, to ma...