Tag Archives: acts of kindness

year of kindness challenge: week 18

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Hi friends! Here’s to a new week! Hope your Monday is off to a fantastic start!

I had one of those restorative, rejuvenating weekends … slept well, made homemade enchiladas and my special California white chicken chili, 3-hour coffee date with my friend Erica, long visits with my Gramps, quality reading time, yoga, fro yo with Mom, some lovely walks, and a thought-provoking sermon at church where I was welcomed home with open arms. Life is good and I feel so grateful and blessed!

Last week’s kindness challenge was to pick up litter! I went on a walk at one of my favorite spots, the path in my neighborhood that winds along this beautiful barranca and lemon orchards.

barranca path

barranca path 2

I filled up this plastic grocery bag with trash!

trash bag

trash bag 2

On my walk I had another opportunity for kindness: one of the sprinklers on the path was broken and gushing up a ton of water, like a geyser. As soon as I got home, I called the city parks service and let them know, and they promised to get on it right away! Hopefully we saved some water from being wasted!

Here are a couple articles I came across this week about kind acts that warmed my heart:

The Week 18 Kindness Challenge, in honor of Mother’s Day this Sunday, is to write a note to a mother of one of your friends who has had an influence in your life. Alternatively, you could write to another mother-figure in your life, such as an aunt or family friend. Thank them for all the joy and love they have brought into your life!

As always, blog about your experiences and include your links in the comments section below, or feel free to send me an email at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

Have a wonderful week!
Dallas

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year of kindness archives:
– week 1 challenge: donate items to those in need
– week 2 challenge: leave quarters & note at laundry machine
– week 3 challenge: write & send a kind handwritten note
– week 4 challenge: give hot chocolate to someone outside in the cold
– week 5 challenge: do something kind for a neighbor
– week 6 challenge: deliver valentines to a nursing home
– week 7 challenge: donate to a food pantry
– week 8 challenge: donate toiletries to a shelter
– week 9 challenge: post a kind note in a public place
– week 10 challenge: do something kind for a child
– week 11 challenge: thank someone in a genuine & meaningful way
– week 12 challenge: deliver baked goods to a fire station
– week 13 challenge: give someone flowers
– week 14 challenge: donate books
– week 15 challenge: reach out and spend time with people
– week 16 challenge: smile at everyone you meet
– week 17 challenge: pick up litter/trash

year of kindness challenge: week 14

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year of kindness button

Happy Monday, friends! How was your weekend? The weather has finally shifted from winter to sunny spring and I am LOVING it! Walking outdoors and soaking up the sunshine and fresh air is such a pleasure.

Speaking of spring, it seems fitting that the kindness challenge this past week was to give someone flowers. I gave flowers to two lovely people this week: my friend Shavonne, who aced her thesis defense {my defense is this Wednesday, eek!} and to the English Department Schedule Deputy Judy Ware, who is retiring this semester after many years of service. She is a really sweet lady and will certainly be missed at Purdue!

I picked up a couple pretty bouquets at the grocery store while I did my shopping for the week.

flowers

It was so much fun delivering them to Shavonne and Judy! Both were so surprised and excited to get flowers. Their faces lit up! It was the best $10 I have spent in a long time.

Judy sent me an email that afternoon:

“THANK YOU for the beautiful wishes and special card/good wishes.  I really appreciate your thoughtfulness. Enjoy finishing your degree and your academic next steps!!!”

This week’s kindness challenge pairs nicely with spring cleaning: go through your bookshelves and box up the books you no longer need or do not plan to read again. Then donate them to your local library, Boys & Girls Club, school or homeless shelter. You could also purchase some new books to donate. A great way to get children involved in this act of kindness is to have them pick out their favorite book to donate to a child who maybe does not have many books of his or her own.

{Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may know that literacy is a cause very dear to my heart — you can learn more about my organization Write On! For Literacy here!}

As always, blog about your experiences and include your links in the comments section below, or feel free to send me an email at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

Have a great week!
-Dallas

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year of kindness archives:
– week 1 challenge: donate items to those in need
– week 2 challenge: leave quarters & note at laundry machine
– week 3 challenge: write & send a kind handwritten note
– week 4 challenge: give hot chocolate to someone outside in the cold
– week 5 challenge: do something kind for a neighbor
– week 6 challenge: deliver valentines to a nursing home
– week 7 challenge: donate to a food pantry
– week 8 challenge: donate toiletries to a shelter
– week 9 challenge: post a kind note in a public place
– week 10 challenge: do something kind for a child
– week 11 challenge: thank someone in a genuine & meaningful way
– week 12 challenge: deliver baked goods to a fire station
– week 13 challenge: give someone flowers

year of kindness challenge: week 12

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year of kindness button

Hi, everyone! Hope your week is off to a good start.

Last week’s kindness challenge was to thank someone in a genuine and meaningful way. I wrote three thank-you notes to friends, and I also tried to be extra-aware of the many small kindnesses and smiles that people give me in everyday life. For every “Thank you!” I said, I tried to fill my words with genuine warmth and gratitude. And, whaddaya know? Just that simple awareness made me feel more grateful.

This past week’s challenge also got me thinking about the various people in the community who are there, keeping me safe in the event of an emergency … which inspired this week’s act of kindness: The Week 12 Kindness Challenge is to deliver something sweet — coffee, cookies, baked goods, etc. — to your local fire station. 

As always, blog about your experiences and include your links in the comments section below, or feel free to send me an email at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

-Dallas

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year of kindness archives:
– week 1 challenge: donate items to those in need
– week 2 challenge: leave quarters & note at laundry machine
– week 3 challenge: write & send a kind handwritten note
– week 4 challenge: give hot chocolate to someone outside in the cold
– week 5 challenge: do something kind for a neighbor
– week 6 challenge: deliver valentines to a nursing home
– week 7 challenge: donate to a food pantry
– week 8 challenge: donate toiletries to a shelter
– week 9 challenge: post a kind note in a public place
– week 10 challenge: do something kind for a child
– week 11 challenge: thank someone in a genuine & meaningful way

year of kindness challenge: week 11

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year of kindness button

Last week’s kindness challenge was to do something kind for a child. I bought extra tickets at Chuck E. Cheese and gave them to a very sweet little girl who was just beaming with excitement to receive them.

My dad sent me this email about what he did for last week’s kindness challenge:

I bought an extra box of Girl Scout cookies (Peanut butter & chocolate Tagalongs) in front of Albertson’s and gave them to a young boy, maybe 8 years old, who was leaving the store with his mom (she said it was OK)  🙂

The Week 11 Kindness Challenge is to thank someone in a genuine and meaningful way. It might be anyone from your mail delivery person to your neighbor to a colleague to a family member. Write a note, make a phone call, mail a letter, bake cookies — anything that feels to you like a worthy expression of thanks!

As always, blog about your experiences and include your links in the comments section below, or feel free to send me an email at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

-Dallas

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year of kindness archives:
– week 1 challenge: donate items to those in need
– week 2 challenge: leave quarters & note at laundry machine
– week 3 challenge: write & send a kind handwritten note
– week 4 challenge: give hot chocolate to someone outside in the cold
– week 5 challenge: do something kind for a neighbor
– week 6 challenge: deliver valentines to a nursing home
– week 7 challenge: donate to a food pantry
– week 8 challenge: donate toiletries to a shelter
– week 9 challenge: post a kind note in a public place
– week 10 challenge: do something kind for a child

year of kindness challenge: week 10

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year of kindness button

Happy Monday! It doesn’t quite feel like Monday to me because I’m on Spring Break and with Daylight Saving “spring forward” yesterday, I’m still a little off timewise. But I’m thrilled to get to spend the whole week soaking up time with our little man, plus it feels so nice to have daylight until 7pm!

Let’s move on to the kindness. Last week’s challenge was inspired by Operation Beautiful, which I discovered via this moving post by Anne at Fannetastic Food, and was pretty simple: write a kind or inspiring note and hang it up in a public place. I hung up some post-it notes in a school restroom:

kind note

DSC00030

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My dad hung up a wonderful sign in the bathroom at the local park, where he goes for runs every day and where many youth soccer teams practice:

soccer team sign

It was probably the easiest kindness challenge yet, and definitely something I want to do again. It took maybe two minutes and made me feel happy the whole week! A perfect example of how doing something to brighten others’ days immediately brightens your own day!

Does anyone else drink Yogi brand tea? One of my favorite things is the fortune-cookie-like sayings printed on their tea bags! My cup of green tea two days ago had a very appropriate saying printed on it:

tea saying

{I know the type looks a little strange: I couldn’t get my camera to focus on the tiny print, so I used a bit of photo editing to make it clearer.}

Here are a couple more kindness-related links I came across this past week:

The Week 10 Kindness Challenge was jointly inspired by Moore Love: do something surprising and kind for a child. You might donate toys or art supplies to a local school, leave quarters on top of a gumball machine in a restaurant, or even buy a toy for a child you don’t know like Rhiannon did. Think about what would have seemed totally magical and wondrous to you as a child — and then make that happen for a child {or children} today!

As always, blog about your experiences and include your links in the comments section below, or feel free to send me an email at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

Have a marvelous week!

-Dallas

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year of kindness archives:
– week 1 challenge: donate items to those in need
– week 2 challenge: leave quarters & note at laundry machine
– week 3 challenge: write & send a kind handwritten note
– week 4 challenge: give hot chocolate to someone outside in the cold
– week 5 challenge: do something kind for a neighbor
– week 6 challenge: deliver valentines to a nursing home
– week 7 challenge: donate to a food pantry
– week 8 challenge: donate toiletries to a shelter
– week 9 challenge: post a kind note in a public place

year of kindness challenge: week 9

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year of kindness button

Happy Monday, everyone! How was your weekend? Wonderful, I hope!

This past week’s kindness challenge was to donate toiletries to a women’s shelter or homeless shelter. I donated this big bag to a women’s shelter across town. {Yes, I am that person who hoards hotel soap and always has a “back-up” stash of shampoo and conditioner. I figured it was time to give it all away to people who could use it!}

toiletries

more toiletries

I could tell the woman working was SO grateful, and it really moved me. Much like last week when I took canned goods to the food pantry, I know I want to go back and donate more toiletries and perhaps clothing as well to this women’s shelter in the future.

Speaking of the food pantry, they sent me a sweet thank-you note in the mail this week. How nice!

thank you card

Here are some other good things that happened in my world this week:

  • I got to talk to my brother via Skype from Sri Lanka. It was SO amazing to “see” him — I miss him beyond words! He inspires me every day with his huge heart and unending generosity. I love this photo of him donating shoes at the Foundation of Goodness this past week:

greg shoe donation

  • I received a thoughtful and supportive email from a colleague that really brightened my mood during a stressful day. 
  • I ran into a former student on campus who said she misses my class. Aww!
  • I had lunch with friends on Friday and dinner with another set of friends on Saturday. It was so nice to take some time to catch up and laugh with people I love!

The Week 9 Kindness Challenge was inspired by Operation Beautiful, which I discovered via this moving post by Anne at Fannetastic Food. This week’s challenge is simple: write a kind or inspiring note and hang it up in a public place. This might be a bathroom mirror at school or work, a public bulletin board in a coffeehouse, or even a flyer on a lampost in your neighborhood! Write a message to brighten a stranger’s day and make him or her feel beautiful, special and loved. I would love if you would take pictures of the kind messages you send out into the world! Blog about your experiences and include your links in the comments section below, or feel free to send me an email at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com. You can also share them at the Operation Beautiful website.

Have a marvelous week!
-Dallas

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year of kindness archives:
– week 1 challenge: donate items to those in need
– week 2 challenge: leave quarters & note at laundry machine
– week 3 challenge: write & send a kind handwritten note
– week 4 challenge: give hot chocolate to someone outside in the cold
– week 5 challenge: do something kind for a neighbor
– week 6 challenge: deliver valentines to a nursing home
– week 7 challenge: donate to a food pantry
– week 8 challenge: donate toiletries to a shelter

year of kindness challenge: week 8

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Happy Monday, friends!

I spent this past weekend in Louisville for a literature & culture conference at the University of Louisville. I presented a paper on Saturday morning, and then Mike and I stayed an extra day to take in the sights and have a mini “vacation.” We had so much fun! Louisville is only a few hours south of where we live in Indiana, but it felt very different there — warmer weather, lots of fun shops and new restaurants to explore, and that lovely Southern twang! If you’ve never been there, I would definitely recommend it as a great city to check out! We are already talking about going back sometime in the spring or summer.

Another novelty about the weekend? Both Mike and I left our computers at home and neither of us have smartphones, so we were Internet-free for two days. It was a nice break to be “off the grid” for a little bit! We both returned home feeling recharged. I don’t really think of myself as someone who wastes time online — usually when I’m online, I’m checking emails or reading blogs or looking up recipes or reading submissions for Sycamore Review, etc etc etc — but in the past few weeks I’ve found myself checking my email and going online perhaps more often than I need to. I think it’s easy to fall into “Internet autopilot” and feel like we must be constantly engaged with the web, staying updated, checking posts … and all of that can just be exhausting after a while, you know? It was such a relief to lie down on the hotel bed, crack open a good novel and not feel like there was anything else I was “supposed” to be doing. I think Mike and I are going to try to “unplug” more often as part of our weekend routine!

Now, on to the kindness! 🙂

year of kindness button

Last week’s kindness challenge was to drop off a donation of canned goods to a food pantry, homeless shelter, or soup kitchen. This idea came when I was thinking about how we often hear a number of opportunities to donate food to the hungry during Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it seems donation efforts die down once the holiday season has come and gone.

My first step was to go through my cupboards and pantry and find a variety of nonperishable food items to donate. As you can see, a lot of tomato-based products made the list, since I have made a big effort the past few months to fully weed out tomatoes from our diet. {Nothing against tomatoes! But Mike is allergic.}

cans from pantry

Then I picked up some canned veggies at the grocery store to round out the donation, and put everything into a big bag! {Note to self: next time, use two smaller bags. Mike helped me carry carried this big bag to my car for me.}

food donation bag

A quick Internet search brought up multiple food pantries in Lafayette, including one just a five-minute drive from campus. I dropped Mike off at school and zoomed over to the food pantry before I had to teach my class. Like last week when I dropped off Valentines to the nursing home, this only took me a short time, but it brightened my whole day! The woman working at the food pantry was SO surprised and grateful for my drop-by donation. I definitely plan to go back and make more donations in the future. It was a drizzly, cold, gray day, but walking back to my car afterwards I swear the world seemed sunnier. Every week of this project just proves to me more and more how being kind to others brings so much kindness and joy into your own life.

A reader emailed me that instead of donating food this past week, they donated toiletries to a women’s shelter. I think that is such a great idea that I am officially making it the Week 8 Kindness Challenge: donate toiletries to a women’s shelter or homeless shelter. Are you someone who stocks up on those free hotel soaps and shampoos and lotions? Why not clean out your stash by donating it to those in need? Or pick up an extra bottle of your favorite shampoo/conditioner/body wash next time you’re at the store and bring it by a shelter in your area. I know it will be appreciated!

Blog about your experiences and include your links in the comments section below, or feel free to send me an email at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

Have a marvelous week!
-Dallas

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year of kindness archives:
– week 1 challenge: donate items to those in need
– week 2 challenge: leave quarters & note at laundry machine
– week 3 challenge: write & send a kind handwritten note
– week 4 challenge: give hot chocolate to someone outside in the cold
– week 5 challenge: do something kind for a neighbor
– week 6 challenge: deliver valentines to a nursing home
–week 7 challenge: donate to a food pantry

year of kindness: week 3

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Happy Monday, everyone! I made it back safe & sound to snowy Indiana. Today’s high is a whopping 12 degrees {yes, that’s Fahrenheit} … I feel like I’ve hopped straight from summer to winter! While I do miss the Florida sunshine, it is wonderful to be back home.

year of kindness button

How did last week’s kindness challenge go for you? I thought it was a quick and simple way to hopefully make someone smile. It made me feel great to think about someone lugging their laundry bag and soap down to the cold and cramped apartment basement, and then finding this note and quarters waiting for them on the communal laundry machines:

kindness challenge week 2

A couple bucks has never made me feel happier!

As I mentioned in last week’s post, this year of kindness challenge is already making me feel more attuned to acts of kindness done to/for me. Here are some lovely things that happened to me this past week:

  • a man helped me lift my heavy carry-on bag into the overhead compartment on my flight to Key West
  • I got to meet the incredibly kind and sweet Judy Blume, a literary icon of mine
  • a fantastic writer and person — and new friend who I met at the Key West conference — Gigi Amateau surprised my conference roommate {a fellow grad student} and me by generously picking up the check for dinner one night
  • everyone at the conference was so warm, friendly and welcoming

My dad also wrote a terrific column for the Ventura County Star newspaper this week featuring three beautiful acts of kindness! You can read it online here.

Now here’s the challenge for this week: write and send a kind note to someone who could use a bit of cheer. This could be a friend, relative, acquaintance, neighbor … anyone who pops into your head who perhaps you haven’t talked to in a while or who is going through a tough time.

Have a marvelous week! I would love to hear your stories of kindness in the comments section below, or feel free to email me at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

Till soon,
Dallas ❤

year of kindness challenge: week 2

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Happy Monday, everyone! Hope your week is off to a marvelous start!

year of kindness button

How did last week go for you? Did you join me in the #yearofkindness challenge? I was surprised at how much FUN I had combing through my closets for items to donate! Never imagined I could enjoy cleaning/organizing so much. I’ve donated clothing in the past, but something about looking through my closet *specifically* for items to give to others made the endeavor feel different — waaaaay more rewarding. Maybe also because in the past I would purge items from my closet solely in order to make room for new items. Not this time! Simpler is better for this girl. Less clothing means I can better appreciate the items I do have!

I ended up packing up a small box of four bras in great condition to ship off to Free the Girls, a fantastic organization I featured in a post last summer.

bras to donate

I also brought a box of about a dozen clothing items — t-shirts, sweaters, pants, and a pair of shoes that never quite fit me right — to the local Goodwill.

donation box goodwill

It made me so happy to give these things away to others! An added bonus is that my closet feels neater and less cluttered.

And maybe it’s a coincidence, or maybe I’m just more attuned to kindness around me, but the karma was returning my way this past week! Just a couple examples:

  • I went to Starbucks on my way home one evening, about half an hour before they closed, and ordered a green tea {I’ve been battling a cold this week and am guzzling green tea like nobody’s business!} … I went to pay with a gift card I’d received for Christmas, but the barista just waved my card away, smiled, and gave me the tea for free! 
  • My super sweet friend Chidelia sent a box of delectable chocolate-covered strawberries. What a wonderful surprise to come home from school and find it waiting on the doorstep!

strawberries

  • My students are already participating in class, volunteering to read their writing when I ask for examples, and even laughed at my feeble attempts at humor, which is pretty much unheard of so early in the semester! {Normally it takes a few weeks to break down their shyness and get them “on my side.”}

I’m already jazzed up about this week! Okay, here’s the Week 2 Challenge: leave a stranger a nice note and quarters for the laundry machine. If you live in an apartment complex with a laundry facility {like I do} you can easily leave quarters and a note there. If not, go to a laundromat and leave a note and quarters on one or two of the machines there.

Take pictures and blog about your experience, or email me at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com, and I’ll be delighted to link to and share your experiences in my post next week!

In joy & kindness,
Dallas