Dear Neighbor....

I chose my next door neighbors as the recipient of my planned random act of kindness because they are such a cute couple. They are a young mom and dad and a baby that live in the one bedroom garden apartment in the building next door. I see them from time to time, on their way to work or to family parties. They always have a blanket covering the baby in it's car carrier and they are always coming and going with what looks like extended family and or friends. They just seem like a nice couple that are hard working and just trying to provide for their small family. So, I thought that I would do something nice for my quite shy but friendly neighbors. I started with the couple in the garden apartment. One night, I secretly slipped an envelope into their mailbox. The envelope contained a $20 Target gift certificate along with one of their red reusable shopping bags. I also put in a small card that said "Smile, you've just been tagged. Encouraging random acts of kindness is the name of the game, and now you are it." On the back of the card it read "Someone reached out to you with an anonymous act of kindness. Now it is your chance to do the same. Do something nice for someone, leave this card behind, and keep the spirit going! Visit www.selflessacts.blogspot.com for my inspiration. Or, visit www.helpothers.org for more ideas and info." The card included the following quote, " The fragrance always remains on the hand that gives the rose. - Gandhi." I found these cards at the www.helpothers.org site. I liked their idea of leaving or giving the card when you commit random or anonymous acts of kindness. I ended up making up my own set of cards to use. I made up some in in Spanish too. Soon, I plan to secretly leave envelopes in the mailboxes of the upstairs apartments nextdoor. It was fun figuring out what I was going to do on Stacy's Day, and I felt really good at the vision I had of their faces when they opened the envelope. I hope that they put that card to good use. I had originally wanted to buy them a package of diapers for the baby but I couldn't figure out how to fit that into their mailbox.