It is the HOLIDAY SEASON!
That can mean different
things for different people: joy, sadness,
excitement, grief, stress, magic, depression…
Those are the same emotions that we experience at other times of the
year, but somehow when the holidays roll around, they are magnified. So, this year, I am going to consciously do
my best to put KINDNESS in the forefront of my mind as I jump into the holiday
season. Sharing kindness with someone
experiencing joy can enhance their joy (which can easily rub off on
you!). Sharing kindness with someone
experiencing grief and sadness can shine a small flicker of light
into their darkness. And sharing
kindness with people around us who we have no notion of what they are feeling
can create ripples of kindness – ripples that will slowly spread to others and
extend kindness further and further.
It is in that vein that I share
some recent uses of Kindness Activist funds with you.
I love, love, love to surprise
people by buying their Christmas tree for them.
We have done this every year since Kindness Activist began, and 2022 could
be no exception! So, I have been looking
for someone to spring the Christmas tree surprise on.
But it is tricky!!! I THOUGHT I found the perfect people in the
holiday section at Home Depot one day. They
were pursuing artificial trees – up and down the aisles. I could tell they were serious and would
likely make a purchase on that shopping trip, so I pretended to be looking at
holiday decorations, too. I could tell
when they had made their choice, so I strolled around to secretly see which
tree it was and check out the price tag.
YIKES – it was over $300!!! As
much as I wanted to treat them, that seemed a bit much, so I kept quiet and
left.
On other shopping trips, I
saw people looking at trees, but they didn’t seem ready to commit
yet. Some days I stood and waited for
someone to come through a check-out line with a tree but came up empty
handed. Ugh!
But I think those fails
were meant to be, because when we finally found the people to treat, it was
obvious that they were the exact right family for this kind surprise. My partner David and I were in Bellevue,
Nebraska on our 23rd wedding anniversary. Before going out to a fancy meal, I said, “Let’s
stop at Walmart and see if we can treat someone to a Christmas tree!” (because nothing
says “romantic anniversary event” than a trip to Walmart, right???).
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| Welcome to Walmart |
We walked around a bit, then started watching a sweet family with 3 kids and 4 adults. One by one, each child chose a toy from a shelf, quietly walked it over to the shopping cart, and were told by an adult that they could not get it and needed to go put it back. The youngest girl was especially sad that she couldn’t get the Barbie she coveted.
We saw the mom stroll into the Christmas tree section and quietly followed her, pretending to be looking for our own tree. As I “looked”, David went back to ask who we thought was the dad of the family if they were going to buy a tree that night. But the man said he didn’t understand English, and David returned to me without the info.
No matter, it quickly
became clear that the mom was in the market for a tree and had indeed
decided on one. She had looked up and
down the aisle at all of the options – big and small – and was ready to put a smaller,
cheap tree ($69) in her cart when I spoke up.
“Excuse me – are you going to buy that Christmas tree?” I asked. She smiled and told me yes. “Well, we would like to treat you to a
tree. I saw you looking at those, too,” I
said, gesturing to the more expensive ones.
“Would you like a bigger one? Do you
have space for one?? We can spend up to
$200 on your tree”.
Her eyes lit up as she
asked if this was true, were we actually going to buy their tree??? When I assured her it was true, she began to
cry and a smile covered her whole face. We
looked together and she chose a beautiful, pre-lit tree that was $189.
She and I walked back to
the rest of the family and she explained to them (in French) what was
happening. They all smiled. I told the kids that we had seen they had
chosen toys earlier, and they should each go grab the toy and put it back in
the cart for us to get. That plan didn’t
go as I had envisioned… Instead of grabbing
the toys they had previously picked and been told they couldn’t get, they grabbed
big, fancy, very expensive things (the biggest being the whole display of
LOL dolls that the littlest child really thought was a “set” and she “needed” 😊 ). In the end I talked them down – each girl got
a Barbie, and the boy got a small gumball machine and a little candy item.
One of the things I loved most about the experience was what one of the little girls said as we were doing self-check out. David and I had been shopping and talking with the family for about 20 minutes at that point, and the little girl looked up at me, eyes wide, and said, “Wait… Are you WITH us???”. It was beautiful.
What made the kindness even more special is that 2 of the adults were visiting Omaha from Cote d’Ivoire. They got to witness a totally random interaction that showed them a good side of America. It wasn’t the gun violence seen on tv. It wasn’t the car crashes or reality tv shows or political fighting. It was KINDNESS – seen firsthand. And it was lovely. Perfect way to spend our anniversary.
Kindness Activist funds used: $222.33
The next use of funds retold here is not related to holidays that roll around in December, but one that happened in October – Halloween. I love Halloween, which makes perfect sense because I love giving gifts! And Halloween is a whole night of giving – giving TREATS to kids who ring the doorbell!!
A sibling duo – pre-teen sister and small brother – have been visiting the Little Yellow Free Pantry daily for the last couple of months. I think they are relatively new to the neighborhood. The girl is very talkative and enjoys engaging. The first time I met them at the pantry she explained that their mom has enough money to buy them food, but not enough for snacks. Thus began a daily stop (or two) at the pantry for chips, dried fruit, crackers, nuts, juice, candy… The kids are very respectful – always say thank you and take only what they need (though I have had to work very hard to keep the young boy from throwing his snack packages on the ground…). Sweetly, the girl takes time to look through the whole pantry (not just the snack section) and sometimes finds items that she takes home for the family – cake mixes, cereal, pasta sauce… Her maturity level at such a young age (helping to provide for the family) is amazing.
October 30th I asked
(without thinking) what they were going to dress up as for Halloween. “We don’t have costumes,” she told me, “But
we will go trick-or-treating anyway”. As
someone who loves dressing up and seeing kids dressed up, this revelation hurt
my heart. “What would you like to dress
up as???” I asked. She wanted some sort
of fairy outfit, he wanted a specific color Transformer. “Done!” I naively thought. I explained that I had beautiful light up
fairy wings I would loan her, and we would run to the store to grab the
Transformer costume.
Ok now… Not only do we not have kids, but we also never
buy store bought costumes for ourselves, we make them. So, I had not thought ahead to the fact that
showing up in the costume aisle at Target around 7:00 pm the night before Halloween
was a recipe for disaster. The costume section
was a MESS – everything was thrown into one aisle, many bits and pieces lie on
the floor, and everything was very picked over.
As you might suspect, the color of Transformer the little boy had
requested was impossible to find. But
hey – there was a SPIDERMAN in his size, and the chest even LIT UP!!! Bingo!!
The tale doesn’t have the
storybook ending that I would like it to so that we could wrap it up with a
perfect little bow. The girl picked up
the costumes too late to bring them to school.
They didn’t dress up in them and parade down to our house on Halloween
night to show us how cool they looked. And
in fact, the girl didn’t return the wings when she had promised she would
(causing me to do a lot of self-reflection, the wings were not the issue (I don’t
need light up fairy wings really, now do I???
It was more about my feelings being hurt that a promise was not
kept).
In the end, my wings came
back undamaged. We saw the little boy in
his Spiderman suit out taking a walk and stopping at the pantry on a random day
(the costume had gone through the wash, so no longer lit up). And the kindness had made the kids happy. And really – that’s all we can hope for,
right?
Kindness Activist funds spent: $25.97
A local elementary school
counselor contacted me last year to ask if Kindness Activist could help pitch
in so that they could supply some families at the school with Thanksgiving
meals. It seemed like a perfect use of
funds, so of course we donated. We wanted to help again this year, so we gave
the school $250 to help buy food to put together turkeys and side dishes for 11
families. Thankful to be able to help.
Kindness Activist funds spent: $250
I was contacted by a counselor at a local school saying that they had a mom of four students at the school who had just had a baby and was in need of a diaper bag and breast pump. It is nice when asks are so specific – that makes granting them easy!
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| Photo of the robe gifted to the mom (from the website, not the mom wearing it) |
I shopped online and found a cozy robe for mamma, clothing and pacifier holders for baby, coloring books, colored pencils, paper, crayons, and books for big brothers and sisters. Then, hoping to make Kindness Activist money stretch further by not buying the other items, I put an ask out into the community, and they did the rest…
We were overwhelmed with
replies!! More than one breast pump
arrived (in excellent condition).
Beautiful diaper bag. More baby
clothing. A diaper changing mat. A car mirror!!! Everything the new mamma and her baby needed.
These are examples of
kindness that I love – when a whole community gets behind a mission. Inspiring!
Kindness Activist funds spent: $194.24
I consider it such an
honor to be entrusted with the Kindness Activist funds, and am always on the lookout
for new, creative, responsible and diverse ways to use them. So, when I saw someone online asking if
anyone had a juicer (she was looking for the exact same inexpensive but
effective juicer we have), I knew it was a good fit!!
This was a simple gift – a quick act of kindness (order juicer, run to store to grab some oranges to go with it, and deliver to recipient). These small acts of kindness go a long way to spread sunshine and happiness in the world!
Kindness Activist funds spent: $35.01
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