This all started in December, 2013. I tend to get a little down around the holidays and I was especially angry with “Ellen” cuz I did NOT get on her 12 days of giveaways, yet again, lol. Then I thought “that is so materialistic anyway” so I came up with the idea to do my own 25 days of giveaways for me & my boys to do one extra nice thing a day for anyone, even a stranger for the 25 days leading up to Christmas and beyond. I made the Facebook page just for us, to keep track of our acts of kindness without everything getting lost in my newsfeed. At the last minute I decided to throw it out there on Facebook for anyone to join us.
This is my original post I put on my personal Facebook wall around Thanksgiving 2013:
Hey fb friends all over!
I’ve been thinking of something we (me & the boys) could do for the holiday season, something special. We don’t have any family here or any “big” plans, etc. and that can be kind of depressing during the holidays. I thought about painting ornaments (again), or maybe going to see the Rockettes at TBPAC, etc. but it didn’t seem to “pack a punch” for me/us. So I came up with this idea and thought I would share and maybe encourage/challenge you all to do the same and we can spread some joy, one day at a time, all over the country, or maybe even world?!
As many of you know I have a soft spot for the homeless. I am definitely not one of those “holier than thou” types…but whenever I see a homeless person I ALWAYS think “but for the grace of God there goes I” and “what you do for the least of my brothers you do for me”. So since we were the lucky recipients of a “random pay it forward” at McDonald’s a few days ago, and that had such an impact on us and was so easy to “pay it forward”, I decided that we are going to do 1 act of kindness each day from 12/1 to 12/25 for Advent…or longer…perhaps through Epiphany and beyond?
Here are some easy things to do:
• Make up little holiday zippy bags (dollar tree), add granola bar, small water, gum, hard candy, cash or a Walmart or McDonalds gift card and a St. Jude prayer card and this year I added a $1 scratch-off lottery ticket for fun (could win up to $5k!). I did these 2 years ago and the boys and the recipients loved it!
• When you pass a person with a sign that says hungry…ask them what they would like from whatever is close by and do a quick drive thru and deliver them a fast food meal. (We’ve done this at McDonald’s before, Man; do we ever go anywhere else? Should have bought stock in that company years ago, lol!)
• Keep some snacks in the car and if you don’t have money to give, offer a snack…cheese/peanut butter crackers, granola bar, water, etc.
• At Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts (fine, McDonalds for us!) ask how much the persons tab is behind you and pay for their coffee/meal/etc.
• Even just putting change in the Salvation Army bucket or the extra grocery requests at Publix, etc.
• You can also go online to sign up for the holiday tent at Metropolitan Ministries – it is a life changing experience. (We are signed up for 12/21 11am-3pm, join us!)
Maybe we can spread a little wave of kindness, one day at a time, one person as a time, and just maybe we can say…some people’s hearts grew 3 sizes that day!!!
A lot of friends jumped on board and shared with their friends and I posted a couple links here & there on the web. On the 1st few days I had a couple “kindness fails”. Then I felt even worse, kind of like geesh, I can’t even get anyone to accept an act of kindness. I even thought for bit maybe this is dumb and I should just quit but thought no, that sets a super bad example for the boys.
The very next morning I received an email on Facebook from Fox News wanting to do an interview. I talked to the reporter and mentioned the couple fails I had and she was really encouraging and said, I think it is wonderful and it’s the thought that counts, it will all come together. Good advice. I also thought it would be fun for us to be on “TV” and exciting for the kids to see how taping/editing works, etc. After the segment aired, the group really blew up. We had over 250 members within the first week! It was really fun and growing and so many people were enjoying it so we decided to keep it going.
I kept posting positive stories, news, inspirational quotes, etc. but unfortunately traffic did die down after the holidays. At Easter I decided to hold a contest for anyone who posted to win a gift card to any place of their choosing. I picked the winner randomly using an online numerator and the girl that won chose a Walmart gift card that can be used for gas too. In the true spirit of the “movement” she used half of her money for gas and the other half for the person behind her at the gas station!
She has been a great supporter (and friend) to me and the group and she is now one of our volunteer Admins on the Facebook page! Thanks Melissa! ;-) Everything works out for a reason, right?
Well, as time went on I sort of felt like I was the only one posting and I really didn’t “want it to be all about me” or sound braggy so I did not post any acts of kindness for a while (even though we and several others were still doing acts of kindness), I just shared inspirational stories, quotes, thoughts, etc. I sort of planned to make a big deal of holidays. So when my birthday came around I had planned to do something in lieu of celebrating “me” and then came up with the idea of treating people at Starbucks and passing out a flier sharing my "message" which, in a nutshell, was this:
Hello there!
Today is my birthday and I thought instead of focusing on me I would try to spread a little kindness around! I feel like there are so many terrible things going on in the world – the ISIS thing, the missing UVA girl, NFL violence, Ferguson, politics, etc. that just maybe if everyone TRIED to do ONE little extra thing, once a day, for anyone, even a stranger…maybe we could change the world?
I know right a tall order but it can’t hurt right, lol?!
HAVE A GREAT DAY& SPREAD THE KINDNESS!
Please visit my Facebook group too!
I included some of my favorite quotes too.
Again, I got another email from a different reporter who wanted to do a story for the Hometown Hero segment. (link to the right)
By this point we had over 800 or so "members" of our "little" group. Then a fellow classmate of Chad's was producing a show for the Tampa Mayor's Youth Group and she wanted to do a story on the "kindness page" and what teens can do to help in their community. It turned out really nice and now we have over 1000 members. (link to the right)
So now today, I FINALLY decided to make this a real blog. So wish me luck & please share!! :)
