15 Stops of Kindness Warms My Heart

So many people are amazingly kind and help out in our work at Kindness Activist.  I get often get texts and messages asking if we know of anyone who needs a specific item, or if the pantry could use x, y, or z.  The outpouring of support is very heartwarming and gives me energy to keep going.

And every once in a while, a very specific offer of support comes in, maybe one I didn’t even know I needed, that gives me such joy.

An offer like that came in yesterday.

A lovely neighbor named Sally sent me this message: “Hi there. The kids are up for a Buy Nothing blitz tomorrow to find items for Project Warmth. If you post another “in search of” ask in the Facebook group, I can take the kids out tomorrow to pick items up and save in my shed for you until the 20th.”

This.

THIS is the kind of specificity that you don’t know you need until it is offered.

You see, we host a big annual event called Project Warmth.  We collect good condition, clean winter clothing items from the community and put out a few of the things at a time in front of our home on a very busy corner near Washington DC. 

It is amazing how many people need hats and scarves and sweaters and coats and boots…  We give away a lot of items each year – last year we handed out over 100 coats (we didn’t count the other items)!!  We hang them out – maybe one sweatshirt, a coat, a hat, some new socks, a pair of mittens…  Then, as an item finds a new home, we replace it.  We do this several times a day, every day, for a couple of winter months each year.

It may sound easy, but it is a lot of work.  I need to put out asks for donations.  I often have to go pick them up.  Sometimes they are dropped off on our front porch (once so many were dropped off right in front of the door that I could not open it to get outside and had to go out the back door and walk around). 

Then I have to SORT them.  I have to make sure each glove/mitten has a mate.  Have to make sure they are CLEAN – we ask donors to only donate clean items but sometimes things come in that need to be laundered, so that means running loads of laundry.  I need to test zippers and check for holes and the like.  Anything that doesn’t pass the “good condition” test needs to get donated somewhere else – yet another step to be done. 

And we need to keep an eye on the project.  If the sweater gets taken, we need to bring out a new one.  If it rains, we need to bring everything in before it gets too wet.  And we need to STORE the things at our home all winter so they are accessible to grab and give.

It is a lot of work.

But this offer from a neighbor that came from out of the blue – this took a big load off of me.  And it not only helped me, it was great for people who had things to donate and were holding onto them until the January 20, 2025 start date.  I started asking for things a couple of weeks ago but requested they not be brought to our home until we began for the season, so some families were just waiting with bags of things until it was time.

And, because of Sally and her kids, for 15 households, today was time!!

Yup – between my ask at around 9:00 PM Saturday night and 7:30 AM Sunday morning, 15 people had commented that they would love to take Sally and the kids up on their offer to come by and pick up donations.  That’s a lot of stops!!

S. (age 10) helped his mom plan out the route by plugging addresses into GPS.  I talked to him via video when they were all done collecting and he said that the work was a bit more than he expected 😊.  He explained that he had carried all of the bags of donations (with ice and snow on the ground, mind you!) from the households to the vehicle and that the bags were heavy.  The GPS told them that the 2-hour drive of 15 stops took them on a route of just under 5 miles. 

Most of the donors left the bags of items out for pick up, but S. said that a couple of the households answered the door and talked with them.  He claimed the whole thing was his sister H’s idea (though I suspect it may have been influenced by mom).  While he hauled the heavy bags, H. documented everything by taking photos on an iPad.  “She is obsessed with taking pictures,” the big brother grinned.  “She probably took about 100,000 pictures.”  That’s my kind of girl!  I love photos!  Sadly, the pics she shot are in a fancy black and white coloring app and can't be shared outside the app, so we will have to make due with photos her mom took :) . 

You may remember these kids from a piece I wrote last year.  In that act of kindness, they handed out bottled water to neighbors when a boil alert came down from the county.  These two are KIND KIDS.

And, like so many times we are kind in life, it turns out that the act not only helped the people whose donations were collected, it not only helped me by taking that task off my plate, and it not only helped the people who will benefit from getting the warm clothing.

It also helped the people doing the kind act.

You see, this family has close ties to California.  They have friends who have been impacted from the fires.  “Feeling pretty paralyzed by all the people we know in California who have lost homes this week, with little we can do from here but donate cash,” Sally told me.  “So, it was nice to be able to do something with our morning that we know will directly help keep people here safe and warm.”

THIS.  So much this.  So often when we go out of our way to do kind things, an unexpected result is that we end up feeling better, happier. 

THANK you Sally and kids.  Thank you for giving of your time and your energy and your gas (and your wicked photography skills) to pick up all of those items and store them in your shed. 

THANK you, neighbors who donated today.  Your winter gear will help make someone much warmer.

And THANK YOU, universe, for putting people in my life who are supportive, kind, and downright amazing. 

If you would like to donate items to Project Warmth, we will officially begin collecting on January 20, 2025.  All donations must be clean and in good condition.  The following items (in all sizes) are needed:

-         Coats

-         Sweaters

-         Hats

-         Mittens/gloves

-         Boots

-         Snow pants/bibs

-         Scarves

-         Sweatshirts

-         New socks

Donations can be delivered to our home in South Arlington starting January 20^th.  If you would like to participate and need the address, please email us at:  KindnessActivist@gmail.com 

Thompson Family Kindness

I firmly believe that doing, witnessing, and receiving acts of kindness makes a person’s life better.  When I feel “down”, if I purposely open my eyes and look for kindness, or better yet, go out into the world and do something kind, I cheer up.  I feel more alive.  I feel engaged with society. 

It was in that vein – the spirit of GET INVOLVED, BE KIND, and FEEL GOOD - that I set about organizing a big holiday time kindness! 

I had seen photos going around of people leaving scarves tied to trees and things with little notes telling people to feel free to take them.  So, I decided to do a project like that with my whole family in Omaha. 

First, we needed WARM THINGS TO GIVE AWAY.  To find those, I cleaned out our closets and asked my family to do the same.  I also posted to a neighborhood list serve called “Buy Nothing”* to see if anyone on there had anything they could donate for the cause.  As usual, my fellow “buy nothing-ers” jumped in to help out, and BOY did they help out!  Soon I had piles of coats, scarves, fleece shirts, mittens, hats, and gloves - 109 different items to be exact!**  I washed them all up and packed them in a big box bound for Omaha.  I also printed little tags (written in English and Spanish) – one for each item.  Then we headed for Nebraska, where my sisters and niece added even more items to the collection!

Getting organized with some of the warm items soon to be shared!

This was a project that the whole family could get involved with and help – from the youngest to the oldest.  We thought the tags would be more special if they had drawings on them, so the family artists set about decorating them.  They were lovely!  The drawings made the items feel more like GIFTS to people who needed them than “donations”.   The two oldest family members were in charge of making a hole in each tag and tying on a pretty ribbon.  Those were then pinned to each item.  

Sherry making pretty drawings on cards

Evelyn was in charge of ribbons

Annette making the cards pretty

Table full of artists

My dad was in charge of punching holes

Kemper is a great artist

One of the cards - isn't it sweet?

Jordan attaching tags to items

We picked December 23^rd for the giveaways, right before the holidays, and decided on two shifts so that more schedules could be accommodated.  It was a cold day, so we bundled up.  My niece even baked cookies to hand out with the warm clothes (those cookies were a huge hit!!).  We relied on the locals to know some places to leave items.  We wanted to make sure that people who needed them would find them and feel comfortable taking them.

SHIFT ONE - my niece Ashlee, great niece Tallis and 2 great nephews Kemper and Ryker, friend Jeannie,
my nephew Nate, me and my sister Annette (plus David, who was behind the camera)

The giveaway was lovely!!!  We put a super warm fleece shirt and hat (and cookies!) under an underpass that my great-nephew and great-niece had noticed a homeless man living.  We hung items around a big park area downtown.  We put things outside the public library (and handed some things out inside the library, got in a bit of trouble for that…  But hey, the group of homeless teens who got some of our things inside really loved them!).  When we were leaving the library after shift one, we put several items under the Christmas tree.  But when we went BACK to the library on shift two, a librarian returned those things to us and said we were not allowed to leave them there…  Oops! 

Organizing things to give away

Nate, teaching his son Ryker to share and be kind.  I love that all ages got involved!

See Diesel, the dog?  The guys at the shelter
loved him and wanted to keep him :)

The Emergency Shelter was happy to have warm
clothes to share with their clients

That’s ok, we just took them to other spots!  We put some outside a women and children’s shelter.  We put some under a Christmas tree at that shelter and gave some directly to the moms there (who were very appreciative).  We tied a couple things onto an RV that appeared people were living in it. We took items to a big homeless shelter (where Diesel, the chihuahua that came with us, was very popular!).  We left some things in bus stops where we knew people would have to wait in the cold – we put them all over!  It was nice to see that when we were driving around during shift two, we drove by some of the spots we left items earlier in the day and they had already been taken! 

Shift two (minus David, who was behind the camera again...)

We tied warm clothes everywhere 

Sharing is KIND

I am so happy that my family all got involved in this big kindness project.  It felt good to be out in the community.  It felt good to share some warmth on a cold, cold day.  It felt good to be KIND. 

David giving a parking meter a hat :)

Scarves - clean, warm, and FREE

Gloves, free for the taking if you have cold hands

Waiting for the bus can be cold, especially if you are not dressed for the weather. 
We hope that some people who needed extra layers happened on this bus stop.

*Buy Nothing: if you have not joined a Buy Nothing group in your community, check and see if there is one!  Buy Nothing is a group that believes in a SHARED or GIFT economy.  If you have something you do not need, you list it in Buy Nothing and someone who wants it comes and gets it (for free).  It is fabulous!  Freecycle is a similar group.  I highly encourage you to get involved with one or both! 

**We gave out 109 items.  It broke down to:  5 shirts, 1 pair of long underwear, 5 coats, 26 pairs of mittens/gloves, 22 scarves, 20 adult hats, 25 children's hats, and 5 fleece shirts.  :) 

Beachy Boho Kindness

Do you ever meet someone who just emanates KINDNESS?  Like, before you even really get into a conversation with them, their kindness just sort of radiates out of them?  I am not trying to be all hippy-dippy-woo-woo here, but that is how it felt when I met Lyn.  She was a shining, quiet, beautiful beacon of kindness!

Beachy Boho Kindness

Here’s the scoop:  I was in Ormond Beach, Florida.  It had been “cold” there for a couple of weeks.  I must put the word “cold” in quotation marks because, well, let’s be honest, temperatures in the 50s are not exactly COLD to the rest of the country…  But to be fair, there WAS a frost warning 2 nights in Ormond Beach and everyone had to cover up plants for safety!  😊 But when it gets down in the 30s at night, that is COLD for this neck of the woods.  And people here, especially homeless people, do not have scarves, hats, gloves, and warm sweaters at the ready when the temperatures drop. 

During the cold spell, I drove by a shop that had a rack out front and a handwritten sign saying the items on the rack were free, and people could take one.  This caught my attention…  A couple of days later I saw a short write-up in the local paper about it, and I decided I needed to go check it out myself.  And that is how I ended up at OCEAN CHILD (A Beachy Boho Boutique)*…

Ocean Child A Beachy Boho Boutique in Ormond Beach, Florida

I was greeted by Lyn, the mom of the owner, Andrea.  Lyn and her husband were working the afternoon I stopped in.  They welcomed me, and we sat down to talk about the shop and what the front rack on the sidewalk was all about.

Lyn and Andrea are women with huge, kind hearts.  They do a lot for the community.  When weather got cold in Florida, they were concerned that not everyone had a roof over their heads or a sweater to keep warm.  So, they put a few of their own warm clothes on a rack outside the store, with a sign inviting passersby to take something if they would like (or to leave something).  Well, it wasn’t long before people noticed…  People started helping themselves to the lovely gift of warmth, and they were gone almost instantly.  (Sure, some teen girls who think “vintage fashion” is cool also got a free item or two, but things mostly went to the homeless men and women who really needed the warm clothing.)  There are quite a few homeless people in the area, and I bet they were thrilled when this rack of warm clothing went up.  I am guessing that word got ‘round quickly!

Pretty soon Ocean Child needed MORE items to put on the rack, so Andrea ran down to the Humane Society Thrift Store to pick up some coats.  Only, because kindness begets kindness, the thrift store was kind to her, and when they heard about what she was going to do with the coats she was buying, they reduced the price from $5 each to $1 each!  (And, again, because kindness begets kindness, Andrea promised to donate any unused coats back to the thrift store when the weather warms up!)  Ocean Child also put a post in a local “What’s Happening” group on Facebook, which got over 700 “likes” and many offers of donations.  Someone called into a radio station and told the listeners about the amazing project, too.  Donated items are coming in at a steady stream – children’s, men’s, and women’s items.  Some people have brought in blankets, which Andrea reports are taken by those who need them almost immediately.  

Simple rack, simple concept, MUCH KINDNESS AND WARMTH SPREAD

Andrea told me the story of one of the people who stopped by, “I had the sweetest man on a bicycle earlier.  I went out to hang up some new items. He had a blanket that had just come in.  But he was just wearing a lightweight shirt.  I said, ‘Don’t you want a jacket?’.  And he said, ‘Well the sign says to take ONE or leave ONE…’  And I told him, ‘Oh honey, you take whatever you need.  If you have friends wherever you are headed to, you take some for them.’  And he grabbed my hand, his hand was so cold.  And he just said, ‘Bless you’ over and over.  It brought tears to my eyes.  I wish there was more that we could do.”  Another woman that stopped was a teacher of disabled children.  The kids were coming to school during the cold weather without anything warm to put on for recess.  Andrea hooked the teacher up, sending her on her way with warm child size clothing for the class of 5, ensuring that recess could continue.    

The kindness just keeps on spreading!  “One woman went to WalMart and bought brand new knee socks and sweater boots to donate.  Those went almost immediately!” Andrea told me.  “And 3 people tried to pay for things on the rack!  We told them no, no!  Those were donated to US, they are for YOU.”

The rack is right in front of the store

I asked Lyn where her inclination towards kindness came from, and she explained that her family has always done charitable things. 

·         She grew up in a military family.  On holidays, her father would always bring men home who did not have family nearby.  They would eat holiday dinner with the family. 

·         The family makes “kindness bags” full of things like crackers, socks, toiletries, candy, Sunny D drink, etc. and keeps them in their car truck to give out to people in need.  “The Sunny D is always a bit hit,” she told me. 

·         On the anniversary on the death of any of their female friends, they get a purse and fill it with “female” items.  They draw a heart that says, “In Memory Of ___”, put it in the purse, then give it to a homeless woman.  It doesn’t cost a lot of money – they get a very nice purse at a thrift store and items to fill it at a Dollar Store.  It is a beautiful way to keep the memory of their friend alive and to pass on kindness in her name. 

·         At Easter time Lyn invited a homeless woman to their family home to eat dinner with them, but the woman was not comfortable coming.  So, the family made a plate of food from the meal and took it to her.  They also gave her a battery-operated fan in the summer to help her keep cool. 

 

This family really shows how kindness spreads from generation to generation.  Lyn was taught to be kind by her parents.  She taught her daughter Andrea to be kind, and now that is being passed on to her 13 year old granddaughter.  “When we are driving down the street if my granddaughter sees a homeless person she says, ‘Oh!  We have to go get food for them!’.  There are a couple of homeless people outside the McDonald’s that we go to.  We always include them in our order as we go through the drive-through.’ “

The store is lovely.  The paintings on the wall that you see here were made by Lyn!

Please keep the kindness going.  Be kind to those who are less fortunate.  If you are in the Daytona Beach area, swing by Ocean Child (164 West Granada Blvd).  Donate some warm clothing (they would especially like gloves and hats).  The boutique hopes to give out free sunscreen and bottled water to those who need it this summer, so you could also bring in some sunscreen to help them stock up for the warm weather that is around the corner.  And while you are there, THANK THEM for their kindness and check out the amazing work of local artists. 

* Ocean Child (A Beachy Boho Boutique) is a lovely store!  It is a warm, welcoming space that carries gift items, clothing, and artwork (on consignment) made by 26 local artists.  When Andrea opened the store one of the main goals was to have a space for local artists to sell their work without having to set up and tear down repeatedly at local art shows.  Artists who sell their work at Ocean Child make a wide variety of things – bath products, crocheted items, painted wood, jewelry, purses, clothing, etc.  Please stop in and shop (164 West Granada Blvd, Ormond Beach, FL) – support local artists.