52 Weeks of Kindness is our theme for 2012! Inspired by our Fire Fairy and her family (who’ve dubbed themselves the Peachy Sneaks) the Fairies and assorted posters of My Everyday Magic will be performing one (at least!) act of kindness every week this whole year. At first we tried organizing and categorizing the Kindness, but in the end SIMPLICITY rules and anyone should just do what inspires them. An act of kindness can be very simple and spontaneous ~ it always makes someone’s day, including YOURS!
Here is what we’ve done so far ~
Week One: The Peachy Sneaks made paper airplanes with green paper and wrote New Years notes on them and delivered them to their neighbors (How FUN is THAT?!)
Week Two: The Peachy Sneaks honored their loved ones ~ their grandparents ~ by treating them to a treasure hunt.
Week Three: Fire Fairy shoveled the snowy driveway of her neighbor’s.
Week Four: Leah and her daughter made little care packages for the hungry in their town and handed them out. (LOVE this!)
Week Five: I (Sparkle Fairy) made the “Take What You Need” sign pictured here and put it up in my local Post Office. (This was SO much fun!)
Week Six: Sparkle Fairy did some Valentine’s Day Love and let 3 people ahead of me at the store and then I bought the two cashiers each a bouquet of flowers (I left the store GLOWING!!) Also, this week one of our My Everyday Magic FB fans, Cheryl Sellick, brought doggie treats to her local dog park and handed them out. What a great idea!
If you perform an act of kindness or have an idea of one, please post below and INSPIRE the world! 
Copying and pasting some LOVELY suggestions for our 52 Weeks of KIndness from our LOVELY Cricket. Thank you, Cricket ~ I adore ALL these ideas!
“So, (simple) outward expressions of it? hmmm… what about things like making double of the meal for that evening and dropping off the other half to a friend in need or a friend who just needs a break…. the same with baking treats for your family….sharing the yummy love….. telling (or writing a little note) a person you are grateful for three things about them that make them wonderful…. telling/writing the worker bees in your world (the grocery check out folks, the postperson, the librarian, etc)….. that you are so glad they do the job they do and life wouldn’t be the same without them. a lot of the things we think might be corny could actually really help lift someone’s spirits and make them feel your MAGIC!”
TODAY there is a WONDERFUL global event happening care of “Piercing the Darkness” http://www.facebook.com/pages/Piercing-the-Darkness/314861211879294
They’re asking people to write a note that says something nice on it and leave it somewhere for someone to read. Having done this as “Sparkle Mission #5″ http://myeverydaymagic.com/sparkle-missions/sparkle-mission-5-little-love-notes/
I can attest that this is SO MUCH FUN, so magical and oh-so-easy!!!! I’m gonna do it today! How about you?
I’m so glad you started a page specifically for this, Sparkle Fairy. I’m really enjoying our missions so far, but we’ve only done two and we have 50 more to go and that’s a bit overwhelming. I love the idea that there will be others jumping in or cheering us on.
Week 1: look for the link posted above. We wrote messages and drew pictures and sneakily threw them to our neighbor’s houses.
Week 2: We did this a handful of days ago. We were lucky to be able to spend 6 days with Grandma and Grandpa (my inlaws) at their beautiful home. One of the activities that my boys and G-ma and G-pa do occasionally is make either treasure maps or a treasure hunt guiding the treasure seekers from place to place. G-ma and G-pa are so generous with their time, love, resources, energy, passions. . . did I already say love? We are truly blessed to have them as our children’s grandparents. I suggested that to the fellow Peachy Sneaks that we make a treasure hunt for them, leading them throughout the house, and also include a sentence of thanks for all of the love they provide for us. My 8 year old was so down with it. He loved it and my 5 year old contributed too. Hmm, what was his thank you? “Thank you (insert toy name – I think) . . .and for the bottle of French’s Yellow Mustard” hee hee. We thought of little phrases for each search, “look for your clue in the bucket of fun” or “look in the place that twins bunk down”. I might not be remembering fully, but you get the idea. They searched and searched and for the last one the boys tumbled out of a closet and gave G-ma and G-pa great big hugs.
It felt good to do this, and I know my boys enjoyed the opportunity to have the fun and express gratitude. Now does this mean we don’t need to send the thank you letter that never seems to ever get written??????
OH, what a LOVELY thing to do! Okay, let’s start categorizing this ~ you think?
Week One: Little Love Notes (aka Sparkle Mission #5…linky above!)
Week Two: Loving your Loved Ones! I did something special for my family this week ~ I ordered them all a gift from Amazon. Who doesn’t like getting gifts just because? I ordered a game for my 4 year old, a toy for my 6 year old, and a book for my hubby that he’s been wanting. They don’t know yet.
What shall be Week Three’s Mission?
I like this idea. 50 seems like such a big number but if it is categorized then each group won’t be so much. How about 4 categories? A category for each week of the month? (of course more if anyone is so inclined)
Think of a nice title though, you are better at it than me. <3
How about one doing something for those in need – balloons to a stranger in the hospital who is not getting any visitors, dropping coins into an empty meter, carrying grocery bags to a car.
Would formal volunteering be in doing something for those in need? We plan on volunteering for Cradles to Crayons, a toy donation place, at some point.
I mean. I love the titles to Week one and Week two, so I would love a nice sounding category for week three and four.
Oh!, so Little Love Notes are not thank you notes. I want a gratitude/thank you note category where we sent letters of appreciation to librarians, postal workers — non family members.
Any other categories. I would be willing to have more than 4, even though it won’t be as neat and clean as 4 a month. ; )
Week 3:
Doing something for someone in need (even though they might not realize it ; )
Ahh, it’s week 3 and I did it! I completed our mission. It was terribly easy, and actually quite fun, so I feel like I cheated a bit, but I accept that. It snowed today, beautiful light fluffy snow. Little miss S and I walked over to our neighbor’s house and while she wallowed in some snow piles, I shoveled our neighbor’s sidewalk. She kept on walking down the street, so I kept on shoveling. I was especially happy that I could shovel the sidewalk of 2 single mamas. One less job for these busy ladies to do.
That is ABSOLUTELY not cheating! What a great idea!!! (I’m just getting all caught up on this page. I must find a better way to organize us!)
Once I figure it out, I’ll redo the initial post with the categories. I say we come up with the categories as they come to us and then anyone can pick and choose what to do when. So far we have:
1.) Little Love Notes (notes of love we leave around for people to find.)
2.) Loving Our Loved Ones (anything we do for our loved ones that is out of the usual routine)
3.) Acting Neighborly (you think? there’s so much we could do for our neighbors like you did for yours!)
and how about
4.) Community Magic (like I’m going to make flyers and post them up ~ the TAKE WHAT YOU NEED flyers, remember?). But this could include anything we do out in public.
5.) Thank You Notes. (letters of appreciation)
6.) Being a Friend.
That’s six categories. I think any act of kindness we do could fit into those six categories. I’m going to think of how to best organize this and recruit others to join us. Any ideas? Love you Fire Fairy!
Last week we were at the grocery store during our snowstorm. We got quite a few inches of snow over a few days, which is unusual for Seattle. There were a couple people asking for spare change outside the doors. My daughter has expressed on a few occasions that she really wants to help homeless people and hungry people. So, we decided to hop into the drugstore next door and get some hot pocket handwarmers, snacks, and water for these people. We filled 2 bags each with 6 handwarmers, candy sweethearts, make your own tuna salad and crackers kits, and bottled water. The first lady was so pleased and said thank you joyfully. The second man said, wow! thanks! I’m really thirsty, this water is just what I needed. We walked home feeling the glow of sharing.
Oh my. I forgot/ran out of time last week. I’m trying to be gentle with myself and just accept it.
Yes, maybe the kindness for last week was being gentle with YOURSELF.
Fire Fairy ~ so far between you, me, and Leah we’ve got all the weeks covered! I’m having SO MUCH fun with this!! It’s absolutely addicting!!! Your act of kindness this week is DEFINITELY sending me that LOVELY care package of your bounty!
Love you, Sister.