People often reach out to us at Kindness Activist to see if we can use something they have in our efforts to spread kindness. This happens especially frequently this time of year – the holiday season.
Well, we recently got an offer that we couldn’t refuse. One that helped put the JOY into the holiday for one family.
A very kind neighbor who
shares a name with me, Susan, reached out saying that she had won a certificate
for a free Christmas tree! Instead of
using it to get a tree for her home, she asked if we would like it so that we
could find a family in need who might enjoy it.
Challenge accepted.
We first offered it to a
family we know that is going through a very difficult period. They were not up for the challenge of setting
up and decorating a tree this year (which I understand totally).
We watched visitors coming
to the Little Yellow Free Pantry, trying to identify someone there who might
benefit from it. The problem is they
would need a vehicle to transport it and a large space to put it up. Those are things that many of our guests do
not have.
We are very, very busy
right now with the Santa Project (an annual event we host where children write
letters to Santa). Between organizing
gifts and writing return letters from Santa for over 200 children, there are
many days in December where I don’t leave the house except to fill the pantry,
set out the daily poll on the corner, and chat with guests coming to get treats
from the countdown calendar on our porch (it is day 17 today, and the treats
are goodies!!)
But we had the certificate
in hand and we needed to find a family for it before the live trees were all
sold out, so off we went to the Optimist Club tree lot one sunny Sunday
afternoon. It was a great excuse to get
out of the house actually.
Shhh - we have a certificate for an amazing free Christmas tree!!!
Only, it turned out the
tree lot was in a wealthy part of town. The
trees were gorgeous, but very expensive, and the people coming to buy them
there were able to afford them without any problem.
One thing about Kindness
Activist is that we are an organization is that it is not needs based. We believe that every human being can
benefit from kindness. That’s why we
often surprise people by doing things like paying for their groceries – we know
they have the money to cover them or they wouldn’t be checking out, but they
are inspired and delighted to receive kindness.
But this particular
act of kindness – surprising someone with a free Christmas tree – this one felt
as if it should go to a family in need. And
it didn’t look like we were going to find such a family at the Optimist Club
tree lot. We talked it over and decided
to head to the closest Home Depot and see if we might be able to make the magic
work there.
And it certainly did work.
It didn’t take long to
find a sweet family looking at trees. We
watched them a bit to make sure they were in the market for a BIG one (the certificate
was good for a 7-foot tree!!). And then
we approached…
Sometimes offering a
kindness such as this is delicate. We do
not want the receiver to feel that we are looking down on them, that we are
pitying them. After all, they do not
know who we are and that we like to spread kindness wherever we go. To them we are just 2 random people approaching
them smiling.
We did not share a common
language, but one of the children was able to interpret (and from the look of
things it seemed like they often functioned in that role). We asked if they were shopping for a tree and
explained that we would like to give them this certificate that would allow
them to get a free tree. “Not here,”
we told them, “You would need to drive about 10 minutes. The address is here on the paper,” we showed
them.
The child interpreted,
smiles in her eyes, as the parents looked over the certificate. They nodded.
“Yes! Yes!” they said.
“Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas!” we told them as we left to
come back home.
I turned back to see them
standing amidst the Christmas trees. They
looked a bit stunned, but happy. I am
guessing they followed us to the parking lot very quickly and made their way to
the other tree lot.
I hope they ended up with the
most beautiful Christmas tree ever and that their holiday season is filled with
even more wonder and magic.
Feliz Navidad
everyone.
Feliz Navidad.
