My Thoughts After Giving Back for 30 Days

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For 2019, I gave myself not one, but twelve monthly resolutions that I called The Twelve Resolutions Project. You can read more about that post here. To hold myself accountable, but to also share the good, the bad, and the ugly about these resolutions, I'm sharing my thoughts and actions after giving back for the entire month of January.

The giving back/random acts of kindness resolution was thought up after a trip to Target one afternoon in mid-December. I discussed this in my Twelve Resolutions Project post, but I'll give you a quick recap. I was legitimately feeling stressed out that I did not have "enough" stocking stuffers for my family for Christmas. As I was sitting in my practically brand new car with loads of Target bags in my backseat, I noticed a family (with two small children) on the side of the road holding a sign reading "Anything will help." If that wasn't the biggest wake-up call in my commercialized, spoiled, and ungrateful heart...

A friend and I helped those people that day. And thus sparked a desire to help others like them. And then that snowballed into a month of helping! Giving back. Or random acts of kindness.

As a planner, I beautifully organized a plan to give back and/or help others. This is how you know that God has a sense of humor. Ha! NOPE! I don't know if I was more in-tune with people/things that needed some extra kindness and attention because of my commitment to the resolution. Or, if these people/things just happened to be presented to me. Hmmm, God is funny like that. Things came up. Opportunities presented themselves and my beautiful plan was tossed out the window.

A number of organizations in which to work were presented to me throughout January as well. Some were planned. Some I knew well; and some were brand new to me. Here are a few of these organizations. PS, some of these you can easily do as well.

Freerice.com: Anyone, including your kids may participate. Play multiple choice quizzes to donate rice to those in need. For every question the user answers correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated via the World Food Programme. Easy! I did this at least 5 times throughout the month. 

World Vision: A child-sponsorship charity program. We've been sponsoring a little boy from Cambodia since 2015. We write letters to each other, we send pictures, and we give a certain amount of money to his family each month. We decided to provide a goat and a chicken to his community to provide extra income and food. I love the organization and Christian-based sponsorship that this non-profit provides.

A letter from our sponsored child-Chhanun

Fostercloset.org: A non-profit that provides resources like clothes, toys, and furniture to foster parents. I heard about this from a Facebook post from an acquaintance-Jill Guffey. A generous family who foster (and recently adopted!) children. Jill said that Foster Closet played a huge role in the recent adoption process of their son Seth. Give FC a follow on Facebook. They're always asking for certain item donations. I dropped off a few toys that my kids no longer played with and some clothing items.

The Guffeys on Seth's adoption day!

Fight For Air Climb: My co-worker participated and raised money for the Fight For Air Climb benefitting the American Lung Association. An event in which participants raise money to climb stairs in tall buildings. The funds raised support research, education, and patient programs to help Americans who are impacted by lung diseases.

My co-worker Dave Armentrout climbing for air

Colorasmile.org: I had my kid and my entire gym plus their kids help me participate in coloring a bunch of pages. Mail out your colored pages (to be printed from their site) to this organization and they will mail them out to anyone who may need a smile-troops, senior citizens, hospitals, etc.

Clark enjoying coloring for a smile

Soles 4 Souls: Donate new or gently used shoes to those in need. As a runner, I understand the necessity of a good pair of shoes. These people literally need shoes to walk to get food and water. I was able to donate two pairs of sneakers.

New Year, New Van: An old sorority sister Meg and now fellow blogger from Trekking Twice traveled to Honduras with her family on a mission trip. On this trip she found that a family living there needed a new van to provide transportation to various places and sporting events. They were able to exceed their $1,000 goal!

Homeless Care Package Drive: I had the opportunity to lead a homeless care package drive with the huge support from my gym. We ended up putting together about 50 gallon-size bags filled with shampoo, soaps, toilet paper, water, etc. We divvied up the bags to keep in our cars. So far, we've been able to give away about half of these bags and it's only the beginning of March!

Homeless care package drive success!

There were days where the random act of kindness included sending a warm text to a friend to tell her how much she means to me. I once helped a lady load up groceries in her car at Publix. I gave the cashier at Burrito Gallery a $20 for a $6 meal and told her to keep the change. I gave someone my umbrella. I paid for the coffee order behind me at Dunkin' Donuts. Clark and I wrote encouraging messages on the sidewalk with chalk. These were the moments in which events were presented to me. And there were many more.

Cue the lesson-learning music from an episode of Full House...And the overwhelming response to all of these events was, "Thanks, but why?" Why? Because we live in a world where we fear our cars will be broken into during the night. Where we've encountered people being mean to strangers for no reason. Where we think people have ulterior motives when helping others. The very least I can do and that WE can do is help each other out every once in a while.

Have a great day (even with one shoe on)!

Create some joy to a stranger when you don't have to.

Give back when you're able.

Lead a drive.

Support in a drive.

Be a nice human.

Finn's my good boy. I'm his nice human.

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