Week 1: Back to School Smiles

I'm baaaaaaaack!

It's hard to believe, but it's been 5 years since I started the Kindness Countdown to my 40th birthday. And even harder to believe that I'm now counting down to my 45th! How does time speed past so fast? I mean, just look at the size of my kids! My 15 year old son towers over me, my 13 year old daughter and I share clothes and shoes, and my youngest is double-digits, going into 5th grade next week!

While we've kept the kindness thing going these past 5 years, all of us were excited to once again embark on this project, to add some structure and planning, to think of all the people and areas of our life/community/country/planet we care so much about and want to help. We've got some really fun things planned for the next 45 weeks and we're excited to share them all with you! So let's get started!

Here we go, Week 1:

This week Tuesday, my family and I helped to hand out school supplies and back-to-school shoes to 250 children whose families needed a little extra help during what can be an expensive time of year.

I became a board member of the Saukville Community Food Pantry at the beginning of 2019, and when I found out about our school supply drive, I was excited to sign up to lend a hand!

My children and I arrived early to sort items, open packaging, and help develop the strategy for distribution. Because the Pantry has done this before, there was already an excellent system in place, registering 50 kids per half hour to eliminate the bottleneck effect that sometimes occurs at events like these.

We worked alongside amazing people, both young and old, who became fast friends. It's funny how quickly you can bond with other kind-hearted people, isn't it? (:

It was amazing watching the youth volunteers offer up special color, character, and uniquely designed items to kids they thought needed a little something extra or who would appreciate them most. It's no wonder their smiling faces made it on the cover of our local paper!

Seeing my kids smile when they saw the smiles they helped create is engraved on my heart.

As we were walking out the door my youngest said, "That was fun, I hope we can do it again next year!" and my middle child said, "I can't wait to see what you have planned for next week!"

I'd say the Kindness Countdown is off to another great start!

Be sure to follow along over the next 44 weeks!

"Like" the Kindness Countdown Facebook page! "Follow" gilded.living on Instagram!

Trust me, you won't want to miss all the KIND fun we have coming up!