Over the past month, our family took part in a little project. We went out and did 30 Random Acts of Kindness (RAK). There was some motivation and inspiration behind this. We were doing it for a friend's 30th birthday!! This is a friend that my kids absolutely adore and I also think she is pretty amazing. She has had quite the impact on our family since being here and we knew her birthday was coming up and that we wanted to get her something. We were just getting stumped on what to get her......so we started thinking about the type of person she is and this idea immediately came to mind! We thought up some RAKs we could do. Some for people we knew, some for complete strangers and, of course, some for the birthday girl!
We had such a great time doing this! It was an experience that brought us excitement, laughter, smiles, the good feels, and, yes, even some disappointments. But through all of those experiences, we became more enlightened. We all have the power to change someone's life. We don't always know the path that another is walking, and a simple act of kindness such as a smile or "hello" (things that I am not that great at doing) could lift someone's spirits or even completely alter that path for the better. Of course, not everyone is willing to accept things from other people (I know I sometimes have a hard time with this) or you will get those that don't react the way you had maybe imagined someone reacting. Those moments can be a bit disappointing, especially for the kiddos, but it's also a teachable moment. We are all different, we don't all react to situations the same, we come from different walks of life. No matter what, with each RAK performed we experienced great joy! We weren't always present to see the reactions of many of our RAKS, but we were for some and were even lucky enough to hear about and see some reactions through IG and FB posts. Seeing the smiles that WE brought to someone's face, to hear that WE brightened someone's day.....what a feeling! What a blessing! And for those that we weren't around to witness, we were at peace knowing that it WOULD brighten someone's day. It's a pure act of love and how could you not feel joy in that?! Most of all we grew as a family. We treated each other a little kinder, we were more patient with one another, smiled a little bigger, hugged a little longer, we were just more in the moment, and we even found ourselves doing RAKS for one another. Blake had never brought back the recycling/trash bins before but he would race me out to get them. Not an easy task for my little guy! Avery made a homemade car track for Blake and also played 'car family' with him. It was really cute! Both Allie and Avery did the dishes and unloaded the dishwasher without us telling them. Allie got up in the middle of the night with Blake when he had to go to the bathroom. Avery left a note in Allie's lunch box. And I could go on and on!!! I was so proud of my kids! Even better, they are still doing RAKs here and there for us and others and we are done with our project!
I've included some pics of a few of the RAKs that we did below.
paying someone's parking at the park
This load is on us!
Left nice notes on random cars
Left this on a strangers car
A good morning treat for the gate guards
Left £1 lying on the shelf in Poundland (even heard back from the person that found this!!)
Delivered a movie to the Pediatric Clinic to play in one of the waiting rooms
Left money for rides
Left bubbles at the playground! (someone posted a picture of their little girl finding the bubbles and even left birthday wishes! This was the first time we heard of someone finding one of our RAKs and we were all smiling ear to ear and cheered!! We also had another person comment about finding the bubbles we left as well.)
Ding Dong Ditch
Left money in candy and toy machines
Allie absolutely loves her teacher. Both girls did RAKs for their teachers. This one was Allie's. They tried to do it without getting caught. Avery got caught delivering flowers to her teacher, but Allie was able to pull off her delivery without hers seeing her.........but it was easy for her to figure out that it was from Allie.
Wrote notes and jokes on the sidewalk outside our house for the many daily passersby.
One of the RAKs I did for my hubby. It's hard to tell but there are hearts on all of the side windows........and even a super big embarrassing one on one of the mirrors. ;)
One of my favorites was when we went to the store and we each picked out candy in the checkout line. Well, everyone except for Allie. She acted like she was having a hard time choosing her candy and I had to try to get her to hurry up with her decision making. She eventually turned to the cashier and asked her what her fav candy was. The cashier leaned over the counter to take a look and told her she liked peanut m&ms. So Allie got those. We paid for the candy and as we were getting ready to walk away Allie handed over the candy to the cashier and said, "these are for you." She was in complete shock!! She started saying no, no, no I can't take these. I just said it looks like she wants you to have them and we smiled and walked away. It was a great moment and Allie was a complete pro!!
This is one of the reasons I know the kiddos are still doing RAKS. Allie came home with this sweet note the other day. I did not send her to school with a cookie or any money so this was all her! (and proof that her teacher knew that she gave her the Rock Star note ;) )
