One of the most important parts of the post from my 43rd birthday is worth repeating, so here it is in purple below (in case you don't have the time or inclination to click on all of those links ;-):
"I thought I'd
better address something pretty important that has come up as I've
shared my birthday goal with friends...in fact, it's so important I may
even "bold" it- (but definitely not "caps" it- I'm SO not yelling at
anyone! ;-):
Just because I've asked folks do perform a random act of kindness in my honor for my birthday does NOT
(had to "caps that ;-) mean that I don't realize that you perform these
acts ALL OF THE TIME (or at least with remarkably admirable
frequency)! Of course you do!!! If you didn't, we probably wouldn't be
friends :-)! I am privileged and truly fortunate to call an amazing,
thoughtful, and generous group of people my friends- random acts of
kindness are simply "who you are"! In fact, your kindness is rarely
technically"random", because it's purposeful and central to your
character....and I love that about you!
(Oh, and to those of you who have told me that you think I'm nuts and
will "freak people out because only weirdos do stuff like this"- I love
that about you, too! ;-).
I decided to go on a RAOK bender because I was inspired by The Birthday Project .
I, (like my fab family and friends), engage in frequent acts of
kindness; however, I've never had the experience of such a concentrated,
purposeful blitz. I'm realizing that the rewards have already
started! Friends have been sharing their own stories of recent acts of
kindness- many have been both benefactors and recipients, and several
have stories related to their vacations. My kids and their friends have
been brainstorming ideas to help me get to 43, and I love that they're
spending time engaged in conversations about helping others! I have
LOVED trying to find just the right things to share with folks for the
ideas that require "specialized" (I mean "specialized" so loosely, that
if my mac had an "air quote" key, I'd use it now ;-) items."
I had a bit of a hard time deciding whether to share about my day. To me, an important part of performing acts of kindness is humility- the willingness to forgo acknowledgement in the desire to serve others from a place that is pure. That being said, I thought about what would have happened if, in the interest of humility, Robyn Bowmar had never shared her story. I never would have read about her, and would have missed learning about a way to make my birthday a day full of gratitude, service, and absolute joy!
The other deciding factor in sharing my story is the desire to get more ideas out there regarding potential random acts of kindness. You'd think it would be easy to brainstorm a pretty comprehensive list of ideas, right? Not so much. Once you get past 10 or 15, ideas that are "doable" (economical, useful, timely, etc.) are hard to come by! We were also trying to do as many acts as we could "anonymously"(in the interest of maintaining that humility), so that limited us a bit. I spent many hours online, trolling Pinterest, in the hopes of coming up with 45 great ideas. I found many blog posts from excited young men and women in their 20's and 30's who had chosen an RAOK birthday, and enthusiastically shared their ideas. That was great; however, the older you are, the more ideas you need, so I searched on!
In the end, I came up with 45 ideas that were mostly economical, and mostly anonymous, so we were really, really happy! It is my hope (and my family's!) that by sharing the story of our amazing day we might both inspire and inform others who have chosen this path for their special day! So, without further rambling, here's what we did!
July 22, 2014
Here is what my dining room looked like in the days leading up to our 45 RAOK...
I
It looks like a disaster, but it's where the magic happens!
And, here's our car all loaded and ready to go, the night before our RAOK blitz:
We opted to decorate it appropriately to share our message:
I had to be very careful driving yesterday...it just doesn't look good when you run over squirrels or change lanes without your blinker when you're driving a car that screams "Kindness Matters"!
So here's our list of acts in the order we performed them:
1) I happened to be visiting my parents a few days ago, and we grabbed lunch at their local Red Robin restaurant. I noticed a group of National Guardsmen having lunch at a table outdoors. I gave our waitress a $20 bill, and asked her to take it off of their check. She was delighted to keep our secret!
2) We left 3 KIND bars with a thank you note and a bottle of water in our mailbox for our letter
carrier.
3) We live down the street from a busy gas station/convenience store with a bus stop, so we committed several RAOK's there...our first one was to buy some scratch off lottery tickets and hang them on all of the gas pump nozzles. On my way back to the car, one guy had pulled up to fuel his car, and saw what we left. He yelled to us (waving the lottery ticket enthusiastically), "Random Acts of Kindness! Yeah!!! Happy Birthday!!!" We were so excited- what a great response to start the day!
4)We live along a bus route to New Haven, so we put together some "commuter care packages" and left them at 3 local bus stops. The care packages included a KIND bar, tissues (love those Snoopy tissues!), hand sanitizer, Tic Tacs, gum, and mints. We also included a note about the Birthday Project and my goal of 45 acts.
5) We posted a list on the bus stop wall of "Kindness Messages" that make for quick and easy texts to send friends..the perfect thing to do when you're killing time waiting for the bus!
6) We also posted a "Take What You Need" flyer on the bus stop wall (my daughter made these :-) that offered tags of things like strength, courage, patience, peace, love, etc. When we drove by later that day, folks had indeed taken a few!
7) We also left books at the bus stops that we'd registered with the Book Crossing website. This means we'd labeled them with serial numbers so people could read them, and pass them along, and we can follow their journey on the web site to see where our books go next.
8) We grabbed a coffee at Dunkin' Donuts and paid for the order for the woman behind us in the drive thru line. It turned out to be a lady with a list. A long one. That should have counted for more acts ;-)!
9) With a LOT of help from my friends (thank you Anne, Julie, Giusy, Michele, Priscilla, Mom, Michelle, and Mary Ann!) I was able to use Sign Up Genius to coordinate an entire Welcome Kit for the Middlesex Family Shelter, which is run by Columbus House. To see what's in an entire Welcome Kit, click here.
After the first 9, we stopped to refuel with a delicious breakfast at O'Rourke's Diner!
10) We then headed to Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven, where we paid for the car behind us to get into the park.
11) We left a "Did you forget something?" kit
in the Lighthouse Point Beach bathroom for parents. We included swim
goggles, diapers, wipes, sunscreen, and hand sanitizer in case parents forgot
to bring theirs. We also left a Book Crossing book with a summer theme for beach reading :-).
12) We had wanted to prepay for 45 kids to ride the carousel at the beach park for 50 cents a ride; however, we learned that the carousel is only open on weekends in the summer :-(. We put our money towards the entry for the car behind us, and left a copy of "The Mysterious Benedict Society" as a Book Crossing book at the entrance to the carousel.
13) We left a copy of "The Unlikely Pilgrimmage of Harold Frye" at the lighthouse, which just seemed approriate.
15) We recently attended a service at the UCC Church on Dixwell Avenue in the Newhallville section of New Haven as part of partnership activities our church is doing with their faith community. While we were there, we learned that their youth group is conducting a book drive. We brought them 2 bags of donations.
16) Also while visiting the UCC, my daughter saved a copy of their bulletin, which listed the names of their congregation's sick and shut-ins. She made drawings and cards for them.
17. A house down the street from us always puts up a beautiful light display at the holidays. Not only is this a lot of physical labor; it's also a big electric expense. We sent a note to let them know that we are grateful for it- and think of it even in the summer!
18. We made a coffee cake for my husband's farm workers to enjoy at coffee break time. I created a plate that one of them can take home and use to pass on...
19. I also made a basket for the break table at the farm that contained KIND bars, organic popcorn, Clif bars, mints, and gum.
20. We left a basket of dog toys at our local dog park that contained doggie-safe tennis balls and pooper-scooping bags that can be attached to leashes.
21. We left a basket of cool stuff at the playground next to the dog park that contained bubbles, jump ropes, dancing ribbons, balls, and more!
22) We left movie night snacks on Red Box machines at 2 local grocery stores. We were so excited to learn that someone we don't know saw one, and liked it enough to post it on her FB page! A friend spotted it, and told us about it!
23) We brought a "thank you" basket full of KIND bars, mints, bottled water, etc. for the children's librarians at the North Haven Memorial Library for all of their kindness throughout the year, but especially all of their extra work with the summer reading program! They were delighted and excited to hear all about our RAOK project!
24) We donated 2 large bags of books to the Friends of the Library book sale.
25) I tucked post cards from my favorite Parisian blog "Paris Breakfast" into books about Paris (and others) on a special display at the library.
26) We left a Book Crossing book in the library's Reading Garden "The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry" seemed appropriate!
27) My son chooses not to redeem his award tickets from our library's summer reading program for prizes. Instead, he hides them in books for other children to find, so they can use them!
28)We left the librarians $5 in an envelope for the next family who comes through with a stack of books and learns that they owe overdue fines, but don't have any cash on them. This $5 will hopefully save eager readers from leaving without books :-).
29) Our financial advisor makes a donation in my honor at every birthday. Back when we initially signed on with him, he asked for my favorite charity for this purpose. So in honor of my birthday again this year, he made a donation to Heifer International.
30) My brother and his family always very generously and enthusiastically support my birthday project! This year, I learned about the story of former child slave Shyima Hall. A pivotal period in her post-rescue recovery was facilitated by the Orangewood Children's Foundation, which just happens to be only a few miles from my brother's home in Santa Ana, CA! Thank you Jason, April, Lily, and Max for donating TJ Maxx and movie theater gift cards to their teen program in my honor! xoxo
31) I prepared extra jackets (laundered and line dried) for children in my class to wear when they forget theirs, or simply need a light sweater on days when classroom is a little chiily.
32) I left a pile of gently-read, but current magazines at our local hair salon for other patrons to enjoy.
33) We brought a "thank you" basket full of KIND bars, Clif bars, Kashi bars, mints, bottled water, etc.
for our North Haven police officers for everything they do all year to make our
town a safe one. As it turns out, they're also pretty smooth characters. They asked why on earth I was performing 45 RAOKS, "when clearly I'm not a day over 35" ;-).
34) We also brought a "thank you" basket full of KIND bars, pop corn, Clif bars, Kashi barsmints, bottled water, etc. to our North Haven firefighters for everything they do all year for our town's residents. They had just returned from a call, and were very grateful for the basket's grab-and go contents.
34) We also brought a "thank you" basket full of KIND bars, pop corn, Clif bars, Kashi barsmints, bottled water, etc. to our North Haven firefighters for everything they do all year for our town's residents. They had just returned from a call, and were very grateful for the basket's grab-and go contents.
We returned to our car and noticed that the writing on the windows casts a pretty cool shadow when we open the trunk:
Since it was written on the outside of the window, it also read properly every time I looked in my rear view mirror- an awesome reminder as we drove throughout the day!
35) We donated several bags of gently used clothing to Big brothers, Big Sisters
36) We bought a few bouquets of flowers and took them apart to make smaller bouquets in vases from the dollar store. We delivered them to our local Rehabilitation Center to be given to people who rarely receive flowers or visitors.
37) We donated 2 large bags of books to New Haven Reads. It was heaven in there! Every wall was covered with gorgeous book shelves and families sat reading together. It is right across the street from a beautiful park -families can go in for free books whenever they choose. Just amazing!
38) We are helping cook and serve dinner at the Columbus House main shelter this Friday.
39) Rich and I will take a painting class next week to create
"Home Sweet Home" signs for Columbus House's recently housed
(formerly homeless) clients. Here's the piece we'll be making (I am most definitely intimidated):
40) We fed coins to almost-expired parking meters in New Haven.
41) We left Book Crossing books at a coffee shop downtown:
42.We left quarters on machines at the laudromat.
43. We taped quarters to the vacuum cleaners at the car wash.
44. Every day on my way to work, I pass an older gentleman who rides his electric scooter to a local restaurant for breakfast, to eat and socialize. I thought he might order the same thing each day, so I stopped in to ask (waiting of course, for the scooter to be gone ;-). Sure enough, he does. So we prepaid for his breakfast for the next day. Won't he be surprised tomorrow when he learns a stranger has picked up the tab :-)!
45. We put away rogue carts in the Target lot.
46. We left a few dollars with notes in the "Dollar Spot" at target for kids to find and purchase something for themselves.
47. We left inspirational messages in the rest rooms at Target. My little guy took care of the men's room for us ;-).
48. I took the time to write positive Trip Advisor reviews
on places we enjoyed on past vacations, and for beloved local businesses.
49. I applied and was accepted as an official “RAKtivitist” by the RandomActs of Kindess Foundation
50. We returned bottles and cans for deposit, and used deposit $ to help
fund RAOKs
51. I mailed a donation to a former student's Eagle Scout
project to build bat houses in Middletown, and told him how proud I am of him.
51 and DONE!
So we overshot our goal!!! WOOHOO! It was all of those great ideas from Pinterest and other places- that's why we had to share all of our ideas. If anyone is researching their own Birthday Project, I hope this is a useful resource! It was the best Birthday Project yet, and I am so grateful to have such a supportive network of family and friends who are willing to give so generously and lend their ideas and support to my annual project. These guys give all year long, but their concentrated help on July 22 each year is phenomenal. Thank you for being among my greatest gifts!!!
We ended our amazing day at our favorite summer spot, The Lobster Shack in Branford.
Wow. All I can say is Wow. xoxox
P.S. If you like some of the artwork I used to create my notes/labels, please visit www.agirlandagluegun.com
P.S. If you like some of the artwork I used to create my notes/labels, please visit www.agirlandagluegun.com
