Project 56 Update

 

I know you are wondering why there is a photo of a gravestone on our blog today.

Let me explain...

It has a been a little bit over a month since Sue, Kenzie, and I decided to do something to give back to our community by forming Project 56.

You can read the full story HERE.

To recap for you, Sue and I turned 40 this year and Kenzie turned 16 so we added the number together and came up with 56.

We want to do 56 random acts of kindness by our birthday next year. Thus "Project 56".

Now that you now what the headline stands for, we thought we would give a quick update on how we've been doing.

 

 

One of our readers, lucylou, suggested we could visit a cemetery and set flowers on the oldest gravestones we could find. We really liked the thought of doing this. We picked wildflowers and tied them with ribbon then went to our local cemetery.

Instead of the oldest headstones we simply walked around and read many of the headstones and then put them on the ones that "felt right" to each of us.

 

 

It was a really moving experience for us.

We just paused for a few minutes at their graves and laid the flowers. It's funny how such a simple gesture can be leave such a huge impact. And, it cost us nothing in terms of money. We picked wildflowers from our backyard and used ribbon left over from Christmas.

While we were there we also noticed some overgrown headstones that needed some TLC. We pulled some weeds, swept away dirt and grass that was covering them, and made sure they could be seen.

We will definitely be going back to do that again.

 

 

During the summer the temperature got up to a billion degrees so Kenzie and I decided to bring a huge box of freezies down to the local lake to share with everyone melting in the heat.

Don't mind our appearance; that is what we look like when we are broiling in the sun. And, yes, Kenzie really is that tall.

It was a little odd at first to approach people and say, "Would you like a freezie?" but people were so thankful. The little kids loved us.

Another random act of kindness that brought a lot of joy (to others and to us!) for not very much money.

 

 

Sue had to go shopping for back to school supplies for Kenzie and while we were at the store we decided to buy extra supplies, backpack, and binder to donate to the school.

I'm not sure if we got everything on the list as we were just kind of throwing things into the basket but hopefully a student in need will find them useful.

 

Some of the random acts of kindness we have done the past month that we didn't take photos of:

Held the door for people when we went in and out of buildings as often as we could.

I was feeling grumpy one day but I vowed to smile at every single person I saw for the rest of the day. I got a lot of smiles in return and ended up feeling way less grumpy by the end of the day.

Bought extra food during a case lot sale at the grocery store and donated it to the local food bank.

Sue made cinnamon buns for the guys building her new house and attached a note saying, "Thanks for all your hard work."

 

I think we got off to a pretty good start.

We will update you again in a little while, hopefully with some more photos, to let you know how we are doing.

I don't know if it negates the principal behind a random act of kindness, being as that it is supposed to be an act to benefit another person, but I am finding that I am getting a lot out of participating in this project.

Is it selfish that I am getting so much joy out of giving?

 

 

Check out Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons for some great links.

And don't forget about My Turn (for us) as well!