Raise Money by Booking Travel Plans!

At the last Rotary meeting I attended the speaker was from Arkansas Sheriff's Youth Ranch. This awesome non-profit is a residential care facility (like a group home) for abandoned, abused and neglected children. The kids live in cottages in groups of 12 or less with two house parents. They are fed, cared for, go to public school and are allowed to stay in the care of the Ranch after they turn 18 so the organization can help them get through a tech school or college if they want or just to help them transition to total independence.

The organization and their residences sounds so great my husband and I are planning to go up for a tour of the facilities and are thinking of planning a small fund or supplies drive for them. (We haven't decided yet which but will let you know when we figure it out.)

In the meantime, if you or someone you know needs to book any travel plans, I just found out when I went over to the Ranch's web site, that if you book your travel plans there, some of the proceeds go to the Ranch. Pass the word!!

Pay It Forward Day

Hey let's make today "Pay It Forward Day"!

Last month, my friend Ginny was the recipient of a random act of kindness at Starbucks.

Today I read a news article about a 40-minute pay-it-forward episode at another Starbucks.

Do you have a place you go for coffee or breakfast? If you can't afford to pay for the person behind you, can you kick in a couple of bucks?

Spend the day looking for opportunities to surprise and delight the people around you. It's amazing how you can bring joy in simple ways to a person and, in turn, they do the right thing and pay it forward to the next.

Ripples in a pond. This is how we spread change.


[photo: Ahmed Rabea]

National Compliment Day

Today is National Compliment Day!

Go, right now, and call someone, visit someone, turn to your neighbor, your friend, write a note... and tell someone special what's special about them.

What do you love about them? What makes them delightful, captivating?

This is even fun you can have with strangers. Compliment strangers (but don't be a weirdo, scary stalker), compliment the hot dog guy on the corner, compliment your subway seatmate. Compliment your cab driver or bus driver for hauling your carcass to work every day. What a thankless job that must be! Compliment the grocery checker on her nice smile.

Compliment your mom because she did a great job raising you, a caring, compassionate human (because heaven knows we need more of those in the world).

Compliment store-owners for keeping their sidewalks clean. Compliment worker people for giving you great service. Compliment someone if they open the door for you.

Compliment me for writing this nice post today. And while you're here tell me how nice my hair looks -- unless you are worried about going to hell for lying in which case you can compliment me on my nice eyes, which are. Nice, I mean.

Make it a game. Call a pal and see who can dish out 20 compliments first. Make an office pool -- chip in 5 bucks each and whoever does the most compliments today wins big!

And here is my compliment to you...

I don't know all of you who come here, but if you are here what I DO KNOW is that you must care about something good. You care about the world, you care about other humans. You care enough to stop and read this silly post and you have a desire to make the world a better place. I appreciate you and what you do, big and small, because without YOU the world would be a colder, darker place. You make my world better.

Daily Action

Having trouble trying to decide what good deed to do today? Care2 has a great site dedicated to picking one action item per day, some that just involve a click or two. You can't get much easier than that!

care2's Daily Action site

[photo: Thai Jasmine]

Tomorrow is National Hugging Day

Start making your plan now. This is a call to action! Tomorrow is National Hugging Day. Who can you hug tomorrow? Go out and get to hugging and then come back and tell your experiences here.

If you can't get around to hugging, how about VIRTUAL hugging! Hug your pals online with e-cards that sends them a virtual hug for National Hugging Day.

Are you afraid to hug strangers, casual friends and colleagues? Come up with a creative way to hug without hugging! Pass out hug stickers or hug cards.

How about some "I was hugged for National Hugging Day" stickers. Ooh, those would rock.

What are some other ideas we can do for tomorrow? (While you're at it, go check out the Free Hugs Campaign!)

[photo credit: kalandrakas]

Apparently, I'm Not Motivational

This morning I dropped my son off at school and on his way out of the car I said, "I love you, go make the world a better place and have a great day!"

Before I even finished the sentence he started laughing and saying, "Okay, okay. Why do you say that every day??"

I actually don't think I say that every day. In fact, I think I've only said it a couple of times.

As parents we always wonder if we're influencing our children. Apparently, while I'm not motivational, I'm at least getting the message across. Too much!

So, um, go forth and make the world a better place. And have a great day.

The Voice of Martin Luther King, Jr.

In honor of MLK Day, I thought it would be fitting to post some good deed type quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. himself.

I hope these will inspire you to meditate on change, compassion, selflessness and giving today. Dr. King did not take the easy path. He could easily have said it was too hard, or given up and said it was a fight he could not win. Nobody can fault a man or woman for not taking a fight that would consume your whole life or had the potential to kill you.

But he was a special person. Let's dig deep and find the special person inside us. Let's go out and do something today to honor Dr. King.

I'll leave the grand finale to him:

Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'