Let me start by saying this is a hard post to write because I really don’t want to come across sounding like I’m tooting my own horn. That was not my intention in blogging about my random acts of kindness at all… I was hoping to inspire others to do the same as well as get some press for some of the good causes I donated to. I actually found that the hardest acts for me to complete were when I came face to face with the person I was doing it for. There’s something really fun about leaving something for a stranger and then wondering about it.

I think that moving forward I’m going to try to do something like this more often, maybe even when I’m having a bad day. This whole exercise taught me just how easy it is to do something kind for someone else and made me more aware of the kind things people were doing for me, even if it was just holding the door open when my hands were full. It was also really neat to see how my acts of kindness impacted the people who helped – from the friend who gave me the clothes for the convalescent home to the barista who was touched by my note to the person behind me at Starbucks. I was tickled pink to have a friend tell me the other day that she and her husband were inspired to do their own twenty-six random acts – they’re spreading it out over the year. It just goes to show how something good almost has a ripple effect. I know there’s no way to erase the horror of Sandy Hook, but I hope in some small way that I made a difference in these twenty-six different acts.

Over the course of just under one month, these are the twenty-six random acts of kindness that I completed:

1. Charlotte Bacon – taped a dollar bill to a vending machine
2. Daniel Barden – left a Starbucks gift card in conference room
3. Rachel Davino – bought stamps left for a stranger at the post office
4. Olivia Engel – bought Starbucks for the person behind me at the drive through
5. Josephine Gay – donated food and toys to the animal shelter
6. Ana Marquez-Greene – left two movie passes for the next people to buy tickets
7. Dylan Hockley – donated food to the local food bank
8. Dawn Hochsprung – left a Cheesecake Factory gift card for the janitor at work
9. Madeleine Hsu – left a Trader Joe’s gift card on a desk at work
10. Catherine Hubbard – left a gift card for a free lunch in the cafe in a random place at work
11. Chase Kowalski – bought In-N-Out for the person behind me at the drive through
12. Jesse Lewis – donated three meals to Drive to End Hunger
13. James Mattioli – donated to the Alzheimer’s Foundation
14. Grace McDonnell – left a Spa Finder gift card in a mailbox
15. Anne Marie Murphy – bought a stranger a dozen donuts
16. Emilie Parker – left lottery tickets in a mailbox
17. Jack Pinto – left a gift certificate for the next person at the garden center
18. Noah Pozner – left quarters in the sticker machine at Safeway
19. Caroline Previdi – bought a large pizza for the next person at the pizza place
20. Jessica Rekos – paid for McDonalds for the next person in the drive through
21. Avielle Richman – donated clothes to convalescent home
22. Lauren Rousseau – gave a fern to the next person in line at Safeway
23. Mary Sherlach – bought frozen yogurt for the next person
24. Victoria Soto – left money for a gallon of gas at the pump
25. Benjamin Wheeler – donated clothes to Goodwill
26. Allison Wyatt – donated $26 to the Grace Foundation