Kindness Yard Sale Accounting - Over $380 Remaining...

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??