We partnered with the Alta Vista Branch of the Ottawa Public Library for a Thanks & Giving Campaign this fall. We had a fantastic Kindness Bag Making Workshop on September 29 to launch this campaign. There was so much goodness throughout this campaign … I will try to capture it all here.
At our Kindness Bag Making Workshop, we had the kids make reusable tote bags out of old t-shirts. A huge thanks to our volunteer seamstresses from OCISO! We had 45 Kindness Bags made in three hours.
The kids also made a Kindness Card and a beaded necklace to be put in their Kindness Bag – using some of the lovely crocheted hearts that were generously gifted to us by The Sewcial Kat.
And the kids also added a gently loved stuffie and book.
Then these Kindness Bags were given to the Heron Emergency Food Centre to be gifted to children accessing the food bank for their Thanksgiving meal.
In addition, the library prepared a small workbook with a few Acts of Kindness from my book, “Plant a Garden of Kindness, A Child’s Guide to Filling a Year with Weekly Acts of Kindness”. The kids were to complete this workbook and then return it to the library to receive a prize. On October 14, I was out in the neighbourhood walking our new pup and I ran into these friends. They were just on their way back from delivering Kindness Cards to the Firefighters, which is one of the Acts of Kindness from my book that was included in the library’s workbook. That was their last Act of Kindness to complete. This awesome world-changing kid was now ready to return his completed workbook to the library. Hooray!
And finally, I received an update from the library that their amazing teen volunteers were so inspired by this campaign that they ran another session of Kindness Card making with kids at the library on another day and they delivered these Kindness Cards to a retirement home for Thanksgiving. How super awesome is that? Kindness really is contagious! Unfortunately, I did not think of getting a group shot of all the amazing teenage volunteers … but I do have this photo of this fantastic young man! He really liked one of the necklaces that was made with the beautiful heart from the Sewcial Kat. I told him he could keep it if he promised to wear it when he was doing his volunteer work with the library.
So much love and friendship was shared. So much great community building. So many kids doing a super Act of Kindness for other children in their neighbourhood. I am so grateful to have been a part of this.