It's (fill in the blank) Night, And You Know What The Means...

At Kindness Activist, we are always looking for new ways to spread kindness.

But we also have some tried and true kind acts that we do over and over.  We repeat them, because they are fun and the recipients love them so much.

One of our common acts of kindness is buying a meal for strangers.

No, not a meal in a restaurant.

But a meal at a GROCERY STORE!

Breakfast is served!

How it works:

My partner David and I love to grocery shop.  In fact, we went to a grocery store on our very first date decades ago!!  Because we enjoy it, we find ourselves at the grocery often.  And sometimes when we are there, if we have time and energy, and put together a meal for a stranger!

Fruit theme!

We choose which meal we are aiming for – breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  Then we get all of the necessary ingredients to make it!

Dinner is on the house!

If it is a breakfast, it might have coffee, milk, cereal, orange juice, eggs, bacon, bagels…

Hearty breakfast ready for delivery

If it is lunch, it might have salad, soup, fruit…

More of a dinner than a lunch, but comes with dessert!

And if it is dinner, we might put together a protein, vegetable, starch, and dessert.

This dinner came complete with sparkling lemonade

Sometimes we do “theme” shops – like all pink and red things for Valentines, or a bag full of SNACKS. 

St. Patrick's Day theme

Wishing you a very Aldi Christmas

It is so fun!

Someone's having hashbrowns for breakfast!

We then take a photo of the items.  Ideally, we take a picture of David HOLDING everything.  One, because it is fun.  And two, because it is funny!!  You can often find us in the aisle at Trader Joe’s, David trying to balance way too much and me snapping a picture.

See?  It's much more fun when David is in the photo...

I then post the photo on our local Buy Nothing group.  I list out everything that is in the offer and explain that we will drop it off to the person chosen the same day.  I explain that the food is not “needs based”, it is “kindness” or “magic” based, so anyone can get it.  (Note:  we do a LOT of needs based food giveaways 24/7 in the Little Yellow Free Pantry, so these special grocery runs can go to anyone!)  I also explain that we prefer to give the food to someone who has not received one of these deliveries from Kindness Activist before.

Neither of us understand the appeal of pumpkin spice season at Trader Joe's,
but we do not let our opinion yuck someone else's yum.

We then finish our shopping, check out, load up the car, and see who has commented on the post.  We choose a recipient, get their address, and bring it to them on our way home from the store.  It is so fun!

This breakfast looks really tasty to me

We have given these special meals to: tired mothers of toddlers, people who are jet lagged from just returning from a trip and haven’t had time to go to the store yet, teachers on limited budgets, people who simply love the food we have chosen, and lots, lots more.  We do these giveaways about twice a month (so often, in fact, that my phone can auto-type the posts, which always start with, “It’s (fill in the blank) evening, and you know what that means...”.

Ahh, that time Aldi had a whole POT ROAST kit!

These small acts of kindness have also allowed us to meet lots of people in the community, and see new neighborhoods.  See, the kindness is good not only for the recipients, but the givers, too!  And delivering these meals also introduces lots of new people to Kindness Activist!

Anyone hungry for a little SNACK?

We have been doing these special grocery meals for years now and I doubt we will stop any time soon.  Our Buy Nothing group has over 4,600 members, many of which are still strangers to us!  But bit by bit, meal by meal, we are meeting more and more of them.

Cheerios - they're what's for breakfast!  
(Along with lots of other tasty things.)

Each meal averages $26.00 (we are savvy shoppers).

No, I am not running out of photos yet.  Like I said,
this is an oldie but a goodie act of kindness!!

That’s not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things.

Another BIG breakfast!

But just the idea that someone else went to the trouble of planning a meal for you, and took time to deliver it.  Well, that makes these extra special.

Are you hungry yet??

Coupon Kindness

This post is to show you an EASY WAY to spread kindness.

COUPONS!

I like to cut out coupons (yes, real live paper old-school coupons) and use them to save money on our groceries, toiletries, and cleaning products.  I am not like the people you see on the television shows who cut every single coupon they come across and buy tons of products they do not need (or really want) just because they have a coupon and can get the item for cheap or "free".  My system is to only clip the coupons for products that we typically use.

But even though I am not clipping stacks and stacks of coupons, there are still times when I have extras that I am not going to use.  For example, if I know we need toilet paper, I may clip coupons for 3 different brands and then go to the store and compare prices, choosing 1 and using only 1 coupon.

What to do with the other 2 coupons that we don't use??

COUPONS!  

GIVE THEM TO SOMEONE ELSE, OF COURSE!  Why let them go to waste??

I used to just leave the coupons on the shelf next to the item, but I worried they would get lost or people wouldn't see them.  So I came up with a new, very simple solution:  tape.  I now keep a roll of tape in the glove box of my car.  When I grocery shop with coupons, I bring the tape into the store with me.  When I have a coupon I am not going to use, I simply tape it near the item on the shelf.  Or you could tape it onto the item itself.  This makes it very easy for the next person to find and use.

You are already bringing coupons with you, might as well carry a roll of tape, too

I like to think that this tiny act of kindness makes the shopper who finds the coupon smile.  Who doesn't like to save a bit on their grocery bill, right?  Every penny adds up.

Taping up the extra coupons only takes a moment, but it spreads a bit of kindness

What little acts of kindness do YOU do to make the world a bit brighter?  Email me at kindnessactivist@gmail.com and tell me about them!  

Little Gestures Mean A LOT Kindness

Do you ever have “those days”?  I think we all do…  Days when stuff just doesn’t feel “right”?  Maybe nothing major happens – you don’t find a dent in your car, you might not be late for an appointment or anything, but it just doesn’t feel like YOUR DAY…

That is the sort of day my friend Sharaine was having recently.  She was feeling a bit out of sorts, a bit down, when out of the blue, a cashier made a big impact.

Sharaine (photo obviously taken on a day she was feeling great)

Sharaine was shopping at Smith’s, a local grocery store where she lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Sharaine is deaf, and when she checked out she used her voice to speak and her hands to sign to ask the cashier, Dawna, how she was doing.  Dawna replied, “Wonderful!”, to which Sharaine said, “Oh, that is a terrific answer!”. 

Dawna finished ringing up the groceries.  She tore off the cash register receipt, folded it, then did something odd – she came around the counter to personally hand it to Sharaine.  Only, as she handed over the paper, she gave Sharaine a BIG HUG.  A hug!!!!! 

Well, that was certainly something that had never happened to Sharaine at the grocery store before! 

And instead of being startled, or scared, or upset, Sharaine returned that big hug.  I wish I had been there to witness it – the cashier and the customer sharing a Wednesday afternoon hug!

Sharaine sent me a message telling me about the incident, and told me that the hug really made her feel good.  It brightened her day.  She told Dawna, “You have no idea how much I needed that,” to which the cashier replied, “I needed it more”.

Who knew the power of a single hug?  Sharaine sure does now!

It is such a SMALL gesture, a hug.  But offering a hug takes guts!  You never know how a hug will be received.  And when a hug is perfectly timed, like this one was, it can make a world of difference.

  

I was so happy to hear Sharaine’s version of the story, but I really felt the urge to talk to the cashier, Dawna, and get her take on it.  Hilariously, I had a ridiculously hard time reaching her.  I am on Eastern time, and she is on Mountain.  I called the grocery store where she works on about 8 occasions asking for her, trying at all different times of the day.  Each time, the people who answered were super sweet and put me on hold to page her or hunt for her.  But each time they came back with, “Nope, she is not here right now, sorry”. 

Sorry I kept calling and having you hunt for Dawna, people at Smith's!

But Sharaine surprised me one afternoon by texting and telling me that she just saw Dawna again at the store (and that she was wearing a “Be Kind” pin, not surprising!), and told her I was trying to track her down. Sharaine facilitated an exchange of phone numbers, and I finally got to talk to Dawna.  And let’s just say, I was very, very impressed but not surprised at how KIND she was, even just on the phone.

First off, I had to know – was Sharaine the only person she hugged, or is this “a thing” with Dawna??  Lucky for the customers at Smith’s, Dawna gives out hugs by the handfuls!!  She explained, “I interact with at least 200 people a day when I work.  I hear so many stories every day.  People love to share if you have the time (and take the time) to LISTEN.  I like to listen!”

Dawna!!!  Doesn't her smile just radiate KINDNESS???

I asked Dawna, who has worked for Smith’s for 14 years, what made her decide to give Sharaine a hug that day.  She told me, “I believe that was the first time I have hugged her.  I could just feel the sadness in her for some reason.  Some people don’t like to voice their feelings, but I could just FEEL it.  So, I gave her a hug.”  Having spoken with Sharaine, I knew how she felt about the interaction, but how did it make Dawna feel?  “It made me feel WONDERFUL.  It was…  I don’t know if SHE needed it, but she RECEIVED it.  That is the wonderfulness I am talking about.  She embraced it, and that made me happy.  And, she said, ‘thank you’.”

Talking to Dawna made me wish I lived in Albuquerque so that I could shop at Smith’s and go through her line!  I surmised that shoppers search for her and go through her queue on purpose, and I was right.  “People get in my line and it gets backed up, but they do not want to move to another line.  Managers sometimes get upset, but it is quite funny.  I want everyone who comes in to grocery shop to walk out feeling GOOD INSIDE.  Now, they might not be too happy that they just spent $300 on groceries, but they feel happy that they feel good inside!  When I am not working sometimes customers ask for me.  I tell them, ‘I need a day off every now and again!’ .”

You know how some people are more “in tuned” to the energy around people than others?  Dawna definitely is.  She is good at reading people, tuning in.  “I don’t have to engage people if they do not want to talk.  I say, ‘Good morning’ and leave it at that.  But a possible conversation can ensue.  I see so many people during the day.  Of course, management wants us to scan groceries fast and get people out the door, but if my customers have something to tell me, I want to hear it.  I want to give them the respect of listening to them.  I may never see them again, but they leave knowing that I LISTENED.  It is all about giving people respect.  That’s all it is.  I don’t care who you are or what kind of day you have had.  If you need to say something, I am here to listen.  And some days I leave work so drained.  But I go home and “plug in my heart to recharge it”.  I think a lot of it is the  Holy Spirit working.”

Albuquerque Kindness

Sharaine noticed Dawna had a Kindness button on that said "Be Kind", so I asked her about it.  She says the simple act of wearing the button can “disarm someone with fire in their eyes”.  She reports that just wearing it can de-escalate a bad situation, because when people see it, it helps them calm down.  “Maybe they have been stuck in morning traffic, dealing with their kids…  But seeing the pin, with just 2 simple words, Be Kind, can change the focus of their day.  Seeing the button makes them take a breath.  It sends a message without saying a word.  Hopefully, it will inspire them to chill out a little bit,” she explained.  

Well Dawna, soon you will have a 2^nd button to wear next to that one.  Your “Kindness Is My Super Power” pin is on the way to you!  And honestly, you are an amazing Kindness Activist and the perfect Ambassador for Smith's.  Your store, your managers, and most of all, your CUSTOMERS are lucky to have you around!

Your new button is on the way!

Thanks for being a KINDNESS ACTIVIST.  Your genuine interaction made a big difference in Sharaine’s day, and hearing about the story made a difference in mine.  I am going to seek out opportunities to be brave enough and open enough to listen to people and offer hugs. 

What about you, will you do the same?  The world could certainly use more hugs.

Do YOU know someone who has done something kind?  Please tell me about them!  Email me at:  kindnessactivist@gmail.com and “like” us on Facebook (Kindness Activist).

THANKS for telling me your story, Sharaine!  I love it.