Cards of Kindness

The lesson that I learned during Covid, one that is reinforced nearly daily in my life since the pandemic began, is the importance of COMMUNITY.

Community comes in all shapes and forms.  Our immediate (blood or adopted) families.  Our friends.  Our chosen families.  The members of a place of worship.  Co-workers.  Neighbors.  An educational cohort.

Community.

Pre-Covid, I will confess, my community was quite small.  But as our worlds began to narrow – as we stayed home, afraid to interact with others outside our “bubble” – a strange thing happened.

Unbeknownst to me, the significance of community was percolating in my brain.

And slowly, unintentionally, I began to build community for myself.  I put out a poll on our corner every morning – totally insignificant questions posed to passersby, the results not even tabulated.  I began to not only give away and receive things in a local online exchange group, I started to also post thank you photos and blurbs about how the items I received were now being given new life.  I wrote more frequent stories of kindness and shared them.  I asked neighbors to join in and beat pots and pans in the evenings to thank the health care professionals….

Each of these acts (and the many others somehow dreamed up while on lock-down) had a compounding effect:  They.  Built.  Community. 

And now I have been reminded that communities are not only there to celebrate in the joyous times, but they are also there to rally and support in times of stress, unhappiness, uncertainty, and grief. 

Arlington, Virginia, the physical community where we live, suffered a great sadness recently.  Five students at Wakefield, a local high school, overdosed on the same day.  One, Sergio Flores (age 14), died.  And just two days later, the facility was on lockdown for three hours as police searched the premises to find who had brought a loaded gun to school.

These instances shook the community.  The school was in shock.  I can’t imagine how the teachers, counselors, bus drivers, and other staff members felt in the wake of both the tragedy and the scare. 

In troubled times like this, most humans respond with a sense of caring.  We want to be helpful somehow, but how??  There are no actions that can make things “better” in times like that, but we search for something, anything, that can perhaps somehow contribute to the greater good.

So, I put out a call for cards.

I asked in a couple of community groups:  can you please handwrite a card for a Wakefield staff member and drop it off on my porch?  I explained that we needed 260 (the number we originally thought would equal a card for each teacher and assistant).  Many, many people responded.  Some offered to write cards.  Some offered blank cards for others to use.  Some made hand crafted cards.  One even offered to furnish supplies and teach others how to make cards.

And so, like many of the ideas in my head, this one grew and grew.  Our ask of 260 cards grew to a bigger ask – wanting to include ALL staff (janitorial staff, security, bus drivers, food staff, counselors…).  And the cards kept coming!  A neighbor offered her porch for a secondary drop-off location for cards. 

Cards - handwritten by loving and supportive members of the COMMUNITY. 
Gifts - small tokens to show that the staff of Wakefield High School is not alone.

In just a few days, 481 cards were written.  This is many more than were needed to give one to each staff member.  I used Kindness Activist funds to order 352 gifts from a lovely Etsy shop – lip balms, bath bombs, and a few headache relief rollers (Maggie's Farm Aromatics Etsy Shop ).  When I explained Kindness Activist and the situation at the high school to the shop owner, she gladly gave me a discount.

Handcrafted lip balms, headache relief rollers, and bath bombs - 
a gift for each and every staff member.

Then my sister and I headed out to find the perfect way to display, transport, and give the cards and gifts.  We thought a basket would be good – but where does one find a basket big enough for everything we had to fit inside it??  I will tell you where – GOODWILL… Call it a miracle, call it kismet, call it luck, call it proof of a Higher Power – whatever you choose to label it, our local Goodwill had the prettiest, BIGGEST basket ever.  And of course, since it was Goodwill, it was one of a kind.  What are the chances???

The biggest basked we have ever seen.  It was far too heavy for one person to carry.

On a sunny Monday, we carried the heavy basket into the school office.  The bath bombs made such a lovely scent, and the basket filled with cards and gifts was a sight to behold.  We left it there for office staff to distribute cards and gifts as they saw fit.

Wakefield teachers and staff - THE COMMUNITY IS BEHIND YOU.

This is community.

This is many hands and hearts pitching in – each one showing support.  This is caring.  This.  Is.  Love.

Kindness Activist funds spent:  $1028.01

Support shared:  immeasurable