What happens when you invite a 6 year old, 12 year old, 9 year old, 7 year old, a couple of 10 year olds, and a 5 ½ year old to come together and paint a bunch of people’s fingernails??
I will tell you what happens. POLISH-A-PALOOZA!
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| See how HAPPY the customers were?? |
Today our yard was full of color. And love. And pride – so. Much. Pride.
I was so happy to see these young kids being so very
PROUD of the work they were doing!
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| So proud of his work - he just finished placing a beautiful shiny gem |
At least one participant was very nervous before today. “But Miss Susan, what if I get polish on someone’s FINGER??” one potential painter asked when I invited her to help at the event. She was worried she would mess up. Worried she would not be “good enough”. “Hey, that’s fine!” I told her. “And do you know what? Some of the nail techs are going to be 6 years old!! Even younger than you!” I explained. Her eyes got wide as she contemplated joining in… Then she said YES.
And she was so glad that she did! As was I.
I specifically asked her to do my nails, and they turned out terrific – looked
just the way I wanted them to.
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| I got a great manicure from this nail tech |
This nail polishing event was really meant to be more of
a “fun raiser” than “fund raiser”. I
mean, asking people to pay for nails done by a kid could be a bit of a stretch…
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| The first customers of the day! |
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| Beautiful manicure! |
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| Pink nails with strawberry stickers - so cute! |
But people came!! Sure, lots of them were related to the nail techs 😊. But hey, those relatives were so excited to have their child paint their nails!! I think the MOST PROUD was this grandma. Her grandson did her nails in his favorite color – orange. She was beaming at the sight of them.
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| This was probably my favorite manicure of the day. This grandma was soooo proud of her grandson and his work. It was beautiful to witness. |
Another thing I loved about the event is that everyone
participated. Maybe it is a generational
thing, but there didn’t seem to be any hesitation from kids to get their nails
painted, regardless of their gender. It was
so great to witness that. Made my heart
happy.
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| Don't these nails look terrific? |
And dads – oh dads got their nails done… This dad got his pedicure from his 3 year old
(who was not an “official nail tech” but nevertheless was proud of her work!).
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| Very young nail tech gently drying her dad's pedicure with a fan. Wouldn't want any of that polish to get messed up! |
We also had hair gems – little shiny jewels that lightly
stick in your hair. The best was seeing
a bald dad rocking a jewel right on the top of his hairless head. Priceless.
We even had a DOG come get her nails done! And the 2 kids who worked on that one did
terrific. The dog (and owner) were very
happy with the result.
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| Manicure in progress... Or was it a pedicure... |
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| Finished nails! A thing of beauty. |
One terrific young volunteer took over the task of snack duty and was great at it. After a while he branched out to sign holding duty and managed to bring some new customers in. (Full disclosure - at first that made me nervous… You pulled over because you saw a sign about getting your nails painted, but did you understand it was an elementary school aged kid who was going to be wielding the brush??? Oh, they understood. They understood alright, and jumped right in!)
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| Concentrating hard to get the nails juuuuust right |
One candidate for school board stopped by to get her nails done. She was out doing meet and greets today, and was heading straight to an event with the Commonwealth Attorney for Arlington. “You are going straight to the event with those nails?” I asked quietly. She beamed. “Of course!! And if Parissa (the attorney) was not so busy today, I am sure she would be here getting her nails painted, too!” she replied. Again – PRIDE. She was going to rock those sunny yellow nails!
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| Those are some shiny, happy nails!!! And that is BEFORE the stickers were added! |
A bit of polish was spilled.
The new bubble machine didn’t work.
I forgot to take a photo of all of the nail techs
together.
But do you know what?
It was perfect.
It was exactly how it should be.
Just like David’s nails.
PERFECT.
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| Perfect manicure. |
Kindness Activist funds raised: $468
Afternoon spent in the sun watching young people be happy
and proud of their work: immeasurable
P.S. – There were lots of cries of, “Miss Susan, can we
do this again???” as we were finishing up today. So be ready – you may need to come get a very
colorful manicure someday…
P.P.S. - $10 of the total above was given as a tip to Jay,
a young boy who had proudly finished another set of nails. The tipper explained that she would pay separately
for her nails, but this $10 was a TIP just for him because he did such a good
job. Well, that little boy came right up
to me and showed me the money. “I just got
this tip!” he said. “I want to give it
to kindness!”. I tried to talk him out
of it… $10 is a LOT of money for a 7
year old, and it was given to him specifically.
“She said I could do whatever I wanted with it,” he told me. “And I want to give it to KINDNESS.”
With kids like that in the lead, our future has to be
bright. It just has to be.
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| This nail tech's favorite color to paint nails is GOLD. Here he is carefully drying the gold nails he just finished. |
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| Aren't our nails lovely?? |
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| Such concentration. |
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| Team work - one paints while one dries. |
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| That is one COLORFUL manicure |
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| Hug from a nail tech |
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| David picked out great colors |
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