I am trying not to write
these Kindness Yard Sale updates too often – I don’t want the acts to come off as
showy or braggy. But I keep reminding
myself – PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW HOW THE MONEY THEY DONATED IS BEING
PUT TO USE, it’s just accounting!! So,
here’s another update on how the most recent proceeds from the Kindness Yard
Sale were used.
Today we did 2 kind acts with
the money that I really loved.
($14) First, this afternoon I bought 2 dozen roses
at Trader Joe’s. If you haven’t shopped at
TJ’s, I will tell you a secret: they
have amazing flowers for not a lot of money!
A dozen roses is only $6.99!! The
plan for the roses started a couple of weeks ago: I asked in my local Buy Nothing group if
people had those single stem watering tubes that they no longer needed. I used to have a bag of them but finally got
rid of them last year, and NOW I needed them!
Two people gave me the tubes they had, and one amazing neighbor ORDERED
BRAND NEW ONES on Amazon to be delivered right to my house!! Thank you, thank you, thank you Mitzi, you are a KIND
neighbor. Your gift delighted me!! Then I made 24 notes targeted to NURSES. They said things like, “Nurses rock”, “If you
want something done, ask a NURSE”, and “Nurses are the unsung heroes of
healthcare”. I punched holes in the notes, tied yellow
ribbon on them, and then today tied a note to each lovely rose.
My sweetie and I then took
all 24 roses to Virginia Medical Center Hospital and gave them out one by one to nurses. They loved it! We ran into our first nurse when were on the
elevator going up – she was returning a wheelchair after discharging someone, I
think. She was so surprised to be
thanked and given a rose – she got tears in her eyes. From there we visited a few floors and one by
one thanked nurses. Each one was very
thankful and delighted. One even gave me
a big hug. That act of kindness will be
repeated with 24 more roses at a local nursing home with notes targeted to
seniors.
($28.37) Doing THAT act of kindness was so fun, I was
in the mood to do another one this evening!
For the previous kind acts I have
been careful to not only target them to lower income people. I want to spread kindness to EVERYONE, not
just those who traditionally ask for a “hand out”. But I have been thinking about how fortunate I
am/we are, in that we have the luxury of basically getting everything we
want. I mean, sure, maybe we can’t buy a
brand new Lexus or a mansion or take a year off work to travel around the world
– but we have a ROOF over our heads, can go to the grocery store and stock up
on heathy food (and treats) whenever we want, and have clean clothes to
wear. Many people in the world can’t say
the same is true for them…
So tonight, I decided to
look for a homeless person and ask them:
what could you get that would make tonight or tomorrow BETTER? In my mind, I had already decided that I would
not use the kindness yard sale money to buy them alcohol or cigarettes. Not because I do not think they do not
deserve those items, but because I hoped to buy them something that would
last. I was a little nervous – I didn’t
want to offend anyone by asking them my question. But we saw a woman slowly dragging a heavy
garbage bag down a street in DC, and I decided to get brave and ask her.
Her first response on what
would make tonight/tomorrow better was MONEY.
“Ahhh. Well, I can’t give you that,” I told
her. “What THING – is there some THING
that would be good?”. She only thought a
few moments before saying, “White socks!!”.
She was wearing what looked like uncomfortable sandals, and white socks
sounded great to me!! I asked what style
– knee high, short??? Short ones were
what she wanted, so that went on my mental list. “What else??”. She thought…
“Mint candy!! Those soft
ones. Red. And white.
And maybe green.” Oooookkkk, not
sure what you mean by that… I countered,
“How about those CHOCOLATE covered mints??” and her eyes lit up!! “Yeah, yeah, those too!!!!”. Then she came up with a really good
need: BATTERIES FOR HER RADIO. Turns out, one of the heavy items she had
been carting around in that garbage bag was a radio. She showed us – 4 AA batteries. And then she did something that I later
realized was really brave – she GAVE ME one of the batteries (so I would know
which kind to buy). That was worth a lot
to her. I bet it wasn’t out of juice,
and she trusted me to take it. As we headed
to our car to go fulfill her shopping list, I asked, “Will you still BE here
when we come back with your things???” and she countered, “Lady, I am
HOMELESS. I ain’t got no where to go!”. Touché, my new friend, touché.
Off we ran to Wal-Mart,
which was another good reminder of how lucky we have it (or how privileged we
are, depending on your vocabulary 😊 ). It turns out, at the Wal-Mart in DC, the
multi-packs of WHITE SOCKS ARE LOCKED UP.
You have to get an associate to unlock the case for you, and they
have to WALK WITH YOU to the check-out to buy them. I bet you don’t have that at your fancy
suburban Wal-Mart, do you?
We ended up buying her 4
pairs of white socks, 1 extra large box of Junior Mints, one large box of soft
red and white mint candy, a bottle of cold water, a bottle of cold Diet Pepsi,
8 batteries (enough to run her radio twice) and, because my sweetheart swore he
heard her yell, “And chocolate cake!” as we walked away, a big ol’ piece of
chocolate cake.
She was happy when we returned
and wondered what had taken us so long (another sign of our privilege – we drove
to Wal-Mart to get things cheaper and make the money last longer instead of the
more expensive CVS store in walking distance…).
It turns out the red and white mints were just what she was thinking of,
and the chocolate cake looked very tasty.
She blessed us, thanked us, called me “Boo” even though we had already
exchanged names, and smiled. I smiled
back and shook her hand. I can’t imagine
how little eye contact and physical contact homeless people must get.
I would like to repeat
that kind act with another person.
($10) And lastly for this report, a $10 donation was
given to a woman named Raquel in Orlando, Florida who is making and mailing
these beautiful signs for FREE to anyone who wants one. I am so impressed with her message and her
generosity that I was happy to use some of the proceeds to help her pay for postage
or printing. If you would like a sign or
to make a donation, please visit: https://www.insistonloveforall.com/
That’s it for this
accounting update. There is still $384.46
remaining from the sale to use for KINDNESS, and I have other ideas in mind
(and some actions I have already taken but am too sleepy to write about
tonight). Thanks again for being a part
of this – spreading kindness can only be a good thing, right??
