How small acts of kindness affect others

Have you ever thought about how your small acts of kindness or even financial donations affect others?

The ripple affect

It’s Sunday night at 10:00 pm. I just pulled the last batch of bread out of the oven. That makes 1,000!  1,000 loaves of pumpkin bread baked in 17 hours. My non-profit organization army baked this bread to sell at our local pumpkin fair. With the money we raised, we contributed to many local charities that support women and children in our community.

My favorite charity is Haven of Peace, which is a women and children’s battered shelter. They help women like Debbie* (*name changed for privacy), a stay at home mother of six children. By providing her with a safe place to stay, she was able to escape the beatings by her husband that put her in the hospital many times. Debbie was able to finally leave him and get on her feet with the kids. Since then she has finished her first Master’s degree and is working on her second one. She plans to go into a field where she can empower other women that are where she was.

My non-profit organization helped Haven of Peace. Haven of Peace helped Debbie and now Debbie is going to help, who knows, how many others. By buying a loaf of pumpkin bread from a non-profit, people’s life’s were changed. The ripple effect.

The phone call that saved his life

The second story I would like to share is one that gave me chills at the time and one I still think about today. Back during the first Gulf War, this same non-profit I belonged to contributed phone cards to an organization who sent care packages to our troops that were deployed.

Okay, a nice thing to do so they can call home, right? Then one day the organizer sent us a copy of a letter a soldier wrote. He wrote that he was scared and witnessing unthinkable things. He didn’t want to live in that hell anymore. He was thinking of taking his own life. That day, he received a phone card that gave him the opportunity to call his family. Once he spoke with his family, he decided that he couldn’t do that to them and that he had a purpose to live. He thanked the organization for that phone card as it literally saved his life. Just think how his death in that way would have impacted his families’ life too. The ripple effect.

A little goes a long way

These are two extraordinary cases of impact. There are many little ones that we are faced with each day like buying something from a child so they can play sports or maybe go to a camp. How will that child be affected?

The contribution doesn’t have to be monetary. Simply smiling at someone as you pass them on the street could brighten their day. Letting someone in line in front of me at the check-out register always brightens that person’s day and makes me feel better for doing it.

Go out there and create ripples as you never know how far they will travel!