So, last year around this time, the kids and I did a bunch of “Random Acts of Kindness.” It must have made an impression because they have been begging to do it again this year.
What we did last year included a thank you card for the local police station (the girls got to meet the police dog when we delivered it), cookies for the firefighters, paying for people behind us in the drive-through, random gift cards to wal-mart shoppers or people parked at fast food restaurants, notes and candy bars to random grocery shoppers, notes and hot cocoa packets to random people at the dollar store, picking random wish lists and baby registries on amazon.com and buying something for that person, “family move packs” to random people eating dinner at a local restaurant (redbox code for a free movie, microwave popcorn, and a note), and I’m sure other things I don’t remember.
Here are some pics of what we did last year.
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So, last night I decided to get started on this year’s little acts. It’s snowing and freezing rain here, so we won’t be going anywhere for a few days. Here’s what I have so far: a note with a new tube of Chapstick in a gift bag, to ward off winter chapped lips – a “wish” written on a little piece of paper and put in a glass bottle with a cork, wrapped with a note attached – little glass bottles of homemade “pixie dust”, Florida beach sand and glitter, with a note (these will be for little girls we find.
Last year we really loved giving the “family movie night” packs, unfortunately, redbox doesn’t sell individual codes anymore.
So, I’m trying to come up with some new ideas. I’ve poked around the Internet, but it seems that the best ideas are the ones we come up with ourselves. I’m thinking maybe we will try to give something to the ER nurses this year, and maybe the the nurses at my grandma’s nursing home. I wish we had loads of money and could do something awesome like pay off someone’s layaway at Wal-Mart, but we are not in a place where we can do that. The purpose of our acts of kindness is to bring a smile to someone’s face and restore their faith in humanity. I feel like its not the cost of what we are doing, but the act itself.
sarahhenery 