Sprinkled with Kindness

Ana invited some friends to join her this weekend in celebrating her birthday (she made the invitations herself). She wanted rainbow colours and sprinkles involved, as well as some random acts of kindness/ service to the community. 

We spent the morning getting the food ready and the balloons and banners up. Ana requested rainbow fruit kebabs, whipped cream filled strawberries, popcorn with white chocolate and sprinkles, "milk of kindness," doritos and root beer. We used little water balloons and stuck them up all over the walls with static electricity. Alyssa (one of Ana's friends) came over early to help and she stuck them all over her head, too. It was brilliant and I never got a photo, which makes me very sad. Sniff.

And this cake, of course. White cake with rainbow sprinkles baked into the batter, covered with cream cheese icing and skittles, and surrounded with cotton candy clouds. We spent a long time sorting skittles and found we had to keep the cake frozen or they would fall back off. It was very much worth it, though. Ana was quite particular regarding the skittle application so only she and I were allowed to do this part.

I had the supplies for the "Acts of Kindness" set up, and once everyone had arrived, we filled in over fifty cards with good wishes and cheerful sayings.

Then we packed up bags and baskets, and headed out.

For our Acts of Kindness we did the following things:

1.In lieu of gifts, many people brought donations for the food bank.

2.DIstributed our fifty+ cards in random places (on cars, bikes, in books at the library, even in obvious shrubs, etc).

3. Toy bombed two favourite playgrounds with bubbles, bouncy balls and whirlygigs.

4. Picked up any trash along our walk (this actually happened spontaneously-- we hadn't planned it).

5. Put up posters that read: It's dangerous to go Solo-- Take a Wookie with you! Just to make people smile. 

6. Took chocolates and thank you notes to the librarians (because many of us hang out there rather a lot).

There are a lot of things we could have done, but these were ones that could be done in a group without too much difficulty (it had been one heck of a week after all). Everything was within walking distance, well-known, and the acitivities were both simple and inexpensive.

 

I think everyone enjoyed themselves, even though this was different for them. There was plenty of time for silly phone photos and playing on the playground equipment. Really, they mostly want a chance to hang out together, so getting to both hang out and do something nice for their community was a pretty positive experience. Plus, they were well fed when they came home. And although we did this with a group of teenagers (well, 9-16 year olds), it would work equally well for a large range of ages.

I was proud of Ana for being so involved in getting this to work. It is a wonderful thing to be able to show your gratitude for this life by sharing even the smallest bit of joy with others.

 

 

Comments

[Christina]

The cake is beautiful,the decorations are too. But the beauty that shines is amass heart. What a gift you have!
Christina

[Christina]

I mean anas heart. Sorry about the typo;).
Christina

[Kyrie]

What a treasure and a gift. Your girl, and these lovely bits of kindness out in the world.