Random acts of kindness

In an effort at full disclosure, this post really has nothing to do with my living on the other side of the world so feel free to stop reading if you like. Instead, it has to do with an old acquaintance that I have recently re-connected with.

She and I grew up in Owosso and got to know each other pretty well in dance class when we were youngsters. We used to get asked to go out and do performances with two other girls. It was nothing too exciting and probably not that entertaining but I have to say that we were pretty good tap dancers. We stayed acquaintances through high school and then lost touch. Through the beauty of Facebook we have recently been back in touch. She and my husband actually got together to go out and do some photography in Durham this summer. (Seems a bit odd that he has seen her more recently than me.)

Anywho, she is a teacher and an amazing artist. I am constantly entertaining myself on long, boring teleconferences by looking at her pictures on Flickr. Did I say she is an amazing artist? Seriously, if you live in the Detroit area and need some pictures taken you should contact her and have her do them.

On her Flickr site she had a project where she tasked herself with taking 100 pictures of the same object. It was a bowl that her friend had created and gave to her as a gift. This summer she accidentally broke the bowl but continued to take pictures to reach 100. Here's a link to her Flickr page to see the last post: http://www.flickr.com/photos/artsyt/3965093185/ In case you don't want to read through all of it, the shortened version is that she had another artist create necklaces out of the broken pieces of the bowl. Her only request to receive a necklace was to pay shipping and to donate money to Gleaners Food Bank of Southeastern MI. Here is their website in case you are interested: http://www.gcfb.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homepage

I am truly amazed that somebody who works a million hours a week has the time to coordinate something like this so that a charity will benefit. As I was reading about this it made me think that I don't do enough and she is a shining example of somebody who makes this world a better place. So, my challenge to all of you is to do a random act of kindness today. It'd be great if you could support her efforts and donate to Gleaners Foodbank. Am not sure if she has any necklaces left but regardless of that, why not just donate to them? (Will be donating money to them myself as soon as this post is complete.) If not them, go ahead and support your local foodbank or another charity that you like. If you don't have the spare money right now then just perform some random act of kindness.

If you have been following my blog for awhile you'll know that just as I started blogging I was at the receiving end of a random act of kindness by a nice Asian man who shared his umbrella with me. I promised to pay him back in some way so hopefully this will do it.