TODAY Was Christmas!
My DO GOOD project is done. And it was great! I fretted for days trying to come up with an idea and settled on combining two "missions." My grandmother whom I dearly loved went to meet my grandfather in Heaven in May of this year. She was in a nursing home during her final months so the elderly in those places were at the top of my mind. The second was young people. I have three children and I try my hardest, as do all parents, to teach them values. But there seems to be such a disconnect because we have spoiled them! We want to do for them and give to them, and then when they EXPECT it without thought to how difficult it can be, we wonder why. My idea was born out of those two concepts.
I was given $50 so I gave each of the 25 students in my son's 7th grade class $2 and the name of a nursing home resident who has no family to visit them. Each resident had a small request: candy, socks, lotion, one even wanted a bag of potato chips! The students could spend just the $2 or more if they wanted BUT they had to EARN it. Today, we visited the nursing home and delivered the gifts to the unsuspecting residents (nobody had a heart attack) and it was AMAZING!
The students were so excited to give their gifts. Let me tell you, they ALL spent more than the $2 and were happy to tell me how they had earned their money: cleaning rooms, emptying the dishwasher, doing extra chores, whatever. And they were happy to give the gift! Some of the residents were not very talkative, which disappointed some of the students. I explained that the residents who were not chatty were not used to having visitors and caught off-guard. And the students said they felt good anyway.
Some were very funny! One of our recipients was 109. Yes, 109-years-old! The teacher told me he would talk to the student and then fall asleep during the conversation! The student was quite confused and the teacher explained, at 109, he had earned the right to sleep when he felt like it.
We disturbed one sweet lady while she was resting. She was laying in bed, just resting. Our young gentleman student walked over to her, handed her a big gift he had wrapped himself and said, "Merry Christmas" (another mandate from me!). She looked at him wide-eyed and said, "Are you crazy?" He looked at me, rather frightened, so I explained who he was and what he had done for her. She just pulled the covers over her head. We started to walk out of the room saying our "Merry Christmases" and she said in a small voice, "Thank you."
Another fine fellow was sitting in his easy chair when we descended upon him. We again explained what we were there for and a young girl presented him with a large present. I asked if he needed help opening it and he did. We began to pull smaller boxes out of the larger one. As we pulled bottles of body wash, lotion, hand sanitizer and other things out, he would repeat, "That's something to drink." When we got to the end, he said "Santa's gonna get drunk!" and laughed. I quickly changed the subject. But we found out he liked coffee and, luckily, she gave him a brand new mug so whew!
If you read my previous post, the pralines were a big hit. I wasn't there when my son presented the gift to his gentleman. So we walked down the hallway to his room so I could tell him hello. He was happily eating the pralines and loving every bite! I showed him the slippers and he made sure I had gotten the right size. Thankfully, I guessed correctly. Swing... and a homerun!
As the students congregated in the hall to go back to school, EVERY SINGLE ONE of them was smiling. They each had a story. Every one of them knew their resident by name. My son proclaimed in the car on the way home, "Mom, today was a happy day." And neither he nor any of those other children got any presents. But wait... that's not true. Nicole from the TV station came to film the delivery and interviewed some of the children. She asked my son what he had learned. With no coaching, prompting, or rehearsal, he said, "I learned that when you get stuff it feels good. But when you give stuff to other people, it feels even better."
I was given $50 so I gave each of the 25 students in my son's 7th grade class $2 and the name of a nursing home resident who has no family to visit them. Each resident had a small request: candy, socks, lotion, one even wanted a bag of potato chips! The students could spend just the $2 or more if they wanted BUT they had to EARN it. Today, we visited the nursing home and delivered the gifts to the unsuspecting residents (nobody had a heart attack) and it was AMAZING!
The students were so excited to give their gifts. Let me tell you, they ALL spent more than the $2 and were happy to tell me how they had earned their money: cleaning rooms, emptying the dishwasher, doing extra chores, whatever. And they were happy to give the gift! Some of the residents were not very talkative, which disappointed some of the students. I explained that the residents who were not chatty were not used to having visitors and caught off-guard. And the students said they felt good anyway.
Some were very funny! One of our recipients was 109. Yes, 109-years-old! The teacher told me he would talk to the student and then fall asleep during the conversation! The student was quite confused and the teacher explained, at 109, he had earned the right to sleep when he felt like it.
We disturbed one sweet lady while she was resting. She was laying in bed, just resting. Our young gentleman student walked over to her, handed her a big gift he had wrapped himself and said, "Merry Christmas" (another mandate from me!). She looked at him wide-eyed and said, "Are you crazy?" He looked at me, rather frightened, so I explained who he was and what he had done for her. She just pulled the covers over her head. We started to walk out of the room saying our "Merry Christmases" and she said in a small voice, "Thank you."
Another fine fellow was sitting in his easy chair when we descended upon him. We again explained what we were there for and a young girl presented him with a large present. I asked if he needed help opening it and he did. We began to pull smaller boxes out of the larger one. As we pulled bottles of body wash, lotion, hand sanitizer and other things out, he would repeat, "That's something to drink." When we got to the end, he said "Santa's gonna get drunk!" and laughed. I quickly changed the subject. But we found out he liked coffee and, luckily, she gave him a brand new mug so whew!
If you read my previous post, the pralines were a big hit. I wasn't there when my son presented the gift to his gentleman. So we walked down the hallway to his room so I could tell him hello. He was happily eating the pralines and loving every bite! I showed him the slippers and he made sure I had gotten the right size. Thankfully, I guessed correctly. Swing... and a homerun!
As the students congregated in the hall to go back to school, EVERY SINGLE ONE of them was smiling. They each had a story. Every one of them knew their resident by name. My son proclaimed in the car on the way home, "Mom, today was a happy day." And neither he nor any of those other children got any presents. But wait... that's not true. Nicole from the TV station came to film the delivery and interviewed some of the children. She asked my son what he had learned. With no coaching, prompting, or rehearsal, he said, "I learned that when you get stuff it feels good. But when you give stuff to other people, it feels even better."
How very cool, both the Pralines and the Do Good story. Two great examples of people stepping out of themselves and reaping the benifits of shared kindness. Good Story BOSS!
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That was the greatest idea, and I commend the teacher to go along with it, Tracy you did fantastic...
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