Hot date Saturday night here! We went to Walmart for some BACK-TO-SCHOOL SHOPPING!!
But not for us, for strangers. School in this area starts on Monday. Would there be any last-minute shoppers??? You bet there were!
We started the adventure by strolling around the school supplies aisle to see if there was anyone we could treat. The parameters were simple: the student should be present, and the recipients should be diverse. I fished my wish!! There were lots of shoppers and they were indeed diverse. We treated people who were Hispanic, African American, Nepalese, white, and Jamaican.
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| Anyone need a new backpack? |
We ended up with 8 separate orders at the cash registers, but most orders were for multiple students. We had: an adorable kindergarten girl with beautiful braids, brothers who looked like twins but weren’t going into 1st and 2nd grades, a girl going into her senior year, a little girl going into 1st grade who talked so quietly I could barely hear her, a 2nd grade teacher, a girl going into 9th grade, and more! It was so fun!
Here are some stats of what was purchased:
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9 boxes of
crayons in various forms
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6 backpacks
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52 composition
books
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10 packs of
filler paper
And lunch boxes and water bottles and pencils (oh looooads of pencils!) and erasers and highlighters and scissors and Kleenex and Clorox wipes and rules and staples and pencil cases (including several kids who picked my favorite one with pop-its on it!) and pens and mechanical pencils and Elmer’s glue and glue sticks (including the shy girl who picked the scented glue sticks that I recommended, cuz, duh, SCENTED!!!), and 3 ring binder and plastic folders and spiral notebooks and markers (including the girl who got a great pack of Sharpies that I secretly coveted) and post-it notes and dividers and a badge holder and dry erase markers and more and more and more until our eyes were popping out of our heads!! It was brilliantly fun!
I have always loved school supplies. They are so shiny and bright when they are brand new. They practically scream new possibilities! So, it was an honor to be able to treat so many kids to what they need to start the year off right.
Sometimes when we do a Kindness Activist act, people are hesitant to accept the gift and say no. But on this adventure not a single person rejected the gift of school supplies! The parents were soooo appreciative, too. One mother had been struggling to make ends meet due to a shoulder injury keeping her off work. One dad had just had Covid and relocated his family. Two moms cried at the check-out. One mom’s eyes got so big when I said, “OK, those are the supplies on the list. Now, does he need a backpack? A lunch bag??”. Mom gently nodded her head yes, and off her son and I went to choose the ones he wanted.
As I was ringing up one woman’s cart (the only person who did not have a child with them), I asked what grade her child would be in. She said, “Oh, my kids are in college… But I am a 2nd grade teacher…”. Well then, kids who show up to that classroom without the needed supplies will have a stash to choose from!
All in all, we rang out 8 separate orders (but served many more than 8 students as most orders were for more than one child). We spent an average of $121.09 on each order. School supplies are not cheap! We were thanked repeatedly, God blessed often, given handshakes, and even hugs. One delighted recipient asked hopefully, “Will you be here again next year??”.
No ma’am, we probably won’t be in this same store for back-to-school shopping next year. But I can promise you that we will be somewhere, spreading kindness and then sharing the stories of it. So be on the look-out!
School shopping is exhausting!
Total Kindness Activist funds spent - $1089.79
P.S. – also purchased for students on this shopping trip but not directly school supply related: two packs of underwear and one small Anna from Frozen doll 😊
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