#59 Acts of Kindness Goal

A few weeks ago I read an article about a girl who lost her grandmother at the age of 86 or 87. She decided to fulfill acts of kindness in her grandmothers honor which inspired me to do the same for grandpa. The only difference is my number wasn't going to match his age like she did for her grandma. I decided to go with 59 acts because that was his race car number and well as the number of years he and my grandma were married. I wanted to give myself a year to complete all 59 because some of what I wanted to do would take some planning and time. My year started on February 22, 2013 (Feb. 22nd is my grandfathers birthday), and it would end February 22, 2014. I already have my 59th one planned out, but I am waiting until Feb. 22nd, doesn't matter if #58 is done 2 months prior or not...but only Jeff and I will know what it is until the day of, then I will fill everyone else in :)

I have already completed 5 acts to date, I keep thinking it was 3 but then I remembered 2 others I had, so here they are so far:

1) On February 26th I donated to site www.chocolatebarbook.com. To sum it up, a 6 year old little boy name Dylan Siegal had a best friend Jonah Pournazarian. Jonah was diagnosed with Glycogen Storage Disease 1B (Liver Disease) and Dylan wanted to do something to raise funds to help his friend. His parents suggested a lemonade stand, but he wanted to do something better. He decided to write a book about his friendship with Jonah and wanted to sell copies to raise money. He wrote his book that night and called it "Chocolate Bar", complete with pictures and all. "Chocolate Bar" between the two means like "awesome" or "cool"; ie: "That's so chocolate bar". Needless to say, it was a hit and was published, raising thousands of dollars since. Currently all funds go to the University of Florida for research, per Jonah's family's request. Per the website, if you donate $20+ they send you a copy of the book. I haven't received it yet, but that it not why I donated in the first place anyway. Just a heads up if you wanted to donate too...you may or may not get a copy of the book, I don't know. Here are pictures of the front cover of the book and of Dylan and Jonah.

2) On March 12, 2013 I donated to site www.gofundme.com/caseyscure to help raise funds for 18 year old Casey Charf. She was in a horrible car accident on February 23rd, went in for a CAT Scan to make sure she didn't have internal bleeding, etc. and they found a large tumor that turned out to be Malgnant Phoechromocytoma (rare cancer). No doctor from her home state even knew what it was or what kinds of treatment to start with, so they definitely needed funding for travel to out of state hospitals and for research of her disease.

3) On March 13th I went through the drive thru line of Chick-Fil-A...not on my diet, but you just have to cure your cravings every now and then!...I paid for the breakfast of the guy behind me. It wasn't a large amount, but I hope it at least made his morning!

4) March 26th was an unplanned act of kindness. I went through the Starbucks' drive thru that morning...again not on the diet but who cares, it's Starbucks man!! I drove up to the window to pay and the cashier informed me that the lady that was in front of me had paid for mine! I thought that was so awesome, so I in turn paid it forward (well backwards really) and paid for the car behind me. It was only about half of what mine would have cost me and I probably could have paid for 2 cars behind me, but if everyone kept paying for someone behind them I was afraid the poor cashier would be all confused counting 2 cars back! I can't get the receipt to turn upright, so just turn your head sideways if you need to :)

5) Also on March 26th. My sister in law, Cathy, posted on facebook a few days prior stating that her church would be holding an event called Cinderella's Closet, which collects donated dresses for prom. They hold the event at the church for girls that cannot afford to buy dresses for prom. Every girl should have the chance to be able to go and this gives them the opportunity! I thought it was great. Unfortunately I had given all of my old dresses to Goodwill because I was tired of them taking up space. I wish I would have thought to look into possibly donating them prior, but now I know! I posted on facebook to see if anyone else had any they would like to donate and got a couple of responses. We also had Jeff's girls go through theirs and they had a couple to give. I didn't get pictures of all of them, but here are a couple. I hope some girls are able to use them because they are beautiful dresses! These pictures keep posting sideways too, but you get the idea.

So, that is where I am at so far. I have a couple more that are in the works and will update when they come around!

UPDATE: Cathy sent me some pictures of some of the girls that received a couple of the dresses that were donated. Her daughter wound up being one of the recipients as well (in the blue dress). They look awesome on them!