In the US, American Muslims raised over $65,000 in support of the Jewish community after headstones at a graveyard in St. Louis, Missouri, were desecrated. French Muslims attended Catholic mass in solidarity with Christians after two priests were killed by an extremist. And the other day, British Muslim women formed a chain of solidarity across the Westminster Bridge after an attacker let loose on pedestrians in London. 

These days, acts of solidarity by the Muslim community in response to violence and hate are becoming the norm. 

But what these stories do not capture are the everyday acts of kindness that build sustained trust between communities. 

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A new report from the German Bertelsmann Foundation revealed that nearly half of all Muslims in that country were engaged in helping refugees in 2016, showing that expressing solidarity with others doesn’t need to be reserved to tragedy. Furthermore, about one in five Christians and one in five people who are not religiously affiliated offered support to refugees. 

This support came in the form of language assistance, as well as providing food, shelter, and clothing. 

The study also confirmed what may be obvious to some — that living in close proximity to refugee populations made Germans more inclined to lend a hand, while distance from them made them less likely to volunteer their time. 

Read more: This Muslim Woman Is Dedicating Her First Ever Boston Marathon to Refugees

Germany has been awash in record numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers in the past few years, many of them from countries like Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In 2015, Germany resettled more than one million migrants, Quartz reports, which generated a backlog of asylum cases and forced the country to significantly curtail the number of migrants it accepted in 2016. 

Immigration to Germany from the Middle East goes back to the 1960s, when the country opened its doors to migrant industrial workers from Turkey and Morocco, as well as southern european countries like Greece and Portugal. In the 1980s and early 1990s, refugees from wars in Iran and Lebanon prompted another wave of migration to Germany. 

The most recent wave of migration began in 2013, coinciding with the escalation of the conflict in Syria. 

Backlash against migration from Muslim majority countries to Germany took the form of groups like the Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West) movement, which saw around 10,000 supporters protest Muslim immigration in the streets of Dresden at its peak in 2015. 

Read more: Italy Approaching Record Numbers for Migrants Arriving by Boat

According to Pew Research Center, 29% of Germans had an unfavorable opinion of Muslims in 2016, lower than neighboring countries like Poland (66% unfavorable) and the Netherlands (35% unfavorable), but still nearly amounting to one in three people. 

The Bertelsmann report paints a more hopeful picture — in which intercultural solidarity beats out distrust, regardless of faith.