RAK's by Monkeys

This past weekend my monkeys, I mean daughters, and I had an amazing experience!  It was one of my favorite days I have ever been with them because they were so proud of themselves and even more excited about making someone’s day a bit brighter. 

We were invited by a friend of ours to join her, and a few other moms, at our local mall and perform RAK’s (Random Acts of Kindness) with a small group she put together called “Kids in Action” to promote kids doing service. 

There was a list of ideas to buy from and we chose to purchase flowers and lottery tickets.  I talked with the girls a lot about this and what we were doing and why.  Before we left that morning I had the girls go up and get money out of their piggy banks so that they understood and were a whole part of this experience.  They were happy to do so and when we stopped at Meijer to buy our things they showed off their bills at checkout.  All except Lana, that is, who somehow lost hers throughout the store.  She was sad, but I explained that she was doing an RAK because someone would find it and their day would be brightened.  She was happy with that and the crisis was averted. Whew!

Off to the mall we go and meet with everyone else.  There were small tags placed on each item with a small quote on it about giving and sharing in happiness.  It was adorable.

First we handed out flowers and it was so fun to see these woman’s faces when they were given a flower by these little girls.  They really lit up and were so thankful.  My favorite was a group of elderly people that were sharing some food together and they were just laughing and talking and so excited about these four little “beauties” handing out smiles.  I was so allured by the whole thing and talking that I forgot to take a picture!  I have a good mental one though.

After the flowers were gone we began to work on our large stack of lottery tickets.  We went in and out of all the nooks and crannies of the mall to pass them out.  Some people at kiosks, some shoppers and some store workers were given things.  Some of their store choices surprised me.  It wasn’t the flashy stores, but the more monotone stores for the older.  Maybe they were less stimulating/less scary to approach.  Build-a-Bear was the best though because all four of my girls have special things they sleep with that they all built from this store when they were each nine months old.  Why nine months?  I don’t know.  It is when we happened to stop by there for our first child and the age stuck as a right of passage for Build-a-Bear I guess.  But, Skyla said “They have given so much to us, we should give back to them”.  I agreed holding back a smile of “we did pay for those you know?”, but I didn’t say anything.  That woman behind the counter was great and so happy and exuberant about her lottery ticket. 

Our last mission was a bag of quarters.  We found a great candy and toy corral by one of the entrances and we taped quarters to the outside of whatever ones the girls wanted and left some extra quarters on top of the machines.  You would think my girls were getting all the goodies themselves with how excited they were to tape quarters on there.

It was truly a great time. 

An observation…

The older generation was MUCH more receptive than the younger generation.  The younger generation didn’t know how to accept something and was so skeptical.  It was almost hard for them to say “Thank You”.  They really had to push it out there sometimes.  I explained to the girls that even though their “thank you” wasn’t very genuine, I am sure we planted a seed of happiness in them for the day and for days to come.

A good lesson….

One mom Lana gave a lottery ticket to was there with her daughter (around age 4) and she asked was a lottery ticket was.  The mom was so touched that we were doing this and told her child that if they win any money off of the lottery card we gave them they would do something with the winnings to pay it forward.  My girls were there listening and we talked about it too.  It was nice for them to hear something like that from someone other than me.

An awww moment…

Skyla, my oldest, trying to decide who to give a flower to, was getting a little stressed.  I told her just to go up to anyone she wanted.  She turned to me and said “But, everyone deserves a smile mom”.  So true my little wise one, so true. 

At the end we all felt very blessed and the girls were asking if we could do this every week.  I told them we couldn’t afford every week, but we can definitely come out as a family and do it again sometime.  It happened to be free pretzel day at Auntie Anne’s and so we stood in line and grabbed four large pretzels as big as my girl’s heads. We sat and ate them and talked about our day with a kind woman eating her lunch there by the fountain.

As we left the mall, the girls were exhausted in body, but exhilarated in spirit.   Good times, Good times…