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The most fantastic thing happened over the holidays. I will start at the very beginning ….

On December 19, Amy Wellings, shared a photo of my book, “Plant a Garden of Kindness, A Child’s Guide to Filling a Year with Weekly Acts of Kindness”, on Instagram and tagged me.

She wrote:

“Starting the wrapping process tonight for the gremlin and this book has to be my favourite Christmas purchase this year. I hope that we can put a lot of this into action throughout 2018!”

I commented, thanking her for the beautiful post and kind words. She wrote back saying that she was in the midst of trying to start a community of little kindness spreaders in Barrhaven and would love to pick my brain. I put responding to her and figuring out more about how this magnificent situation all came together on my to-do list after the craziness of prepping for the Christmas holidays were done.

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Then on December 20, the wonderful Michelle Rosales-Dugas provided a bit more explanation when she posted this on my World-Changing Kids page, with an image that says “Kindness is Magic”:

The joy of spreading kindness! Lindsey what you do is inspirational and I wanted to let you know that your book and World-Changing Kids is working it’s magic and inspiring others to start spreading the same joy in their communities with their kids.

A post in a Barrhaven mom’s group has sparked that mom to start a community group….

“I recently posted about getting my 6 year old daughter involved in the community doing acts of kindness or volunteering etc. and this book was recommended. [Plant a Garden of Kindness] … I think it would be fun to create a small community of little givers here in Barrhaven where the kids can get together and work through the book’s activities together.”

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Then, on December 21, the fabulous Patti Taggart, Owner of Tag Along Toys, messaged me to say that an amazing woman in a Barrhaven Facebook group asked about ways to teach children about kindness. So Patti tagged my book, “Plant a Garden of Kindness”, and said it is available in the two Tag Along Toys stores. This is where Amy purchased a copy of my book!

Patti wrote, “So wonderful to see this spreading to Barrhaven and beyond.”

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Amy then started the Barrhaven Kids Spreading Kindness Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1960333164232511/).

She said that she would love to have some books available to sell to other moms who are joining this group. This was on Thursday, December 21 – we were leaving for our holidays the next day. So, I put a call out on my Facebook page asking if anyone working downtown could do me a huge favour and meet Amy outside the World Exchange Centre at noon on Friday to deliver 5 books to her. I had two wonderful friends respond that they could – Samantha Klein and Alison Lugtigheid Millard. Because Samantha responded first, I delivered the books to her that evening for her to take to work the next day. Samantha and Amy exchanged phone numbers and worked out meeting up!

Amy has scheduled a first planning meeting for the Barrhaven Kids Spreading Kindness group on Tuesday, January 9. I will be there!

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I am so grateful for all the love and support I have received throughout this whole process. I am over the moon excited about the kindness that is being spread around. This is exactly what I wanted to achieve when I started World-Changing Kids. This is exactly what my book is supposed to ignite – the building of friendly, strong, resilient communities where children feel supported, loved and cared for and are able to reach their fullest potential and be the best world-changing kids they can be!

And you know what? It is not just kids who need this type of community – we need to support each other as adults too, so that we can achieve at our highest level and make the world a better place. This situation is proof of that – I have so many people lifting me up and cheering me on, so many people who want me to succeed with World-Changing Kids, that I KNOW that I will succeed. It’s onward and upward in 2018!