Thursday, January 6, 2011

Pay It Forward

Some of you may have seen the Handmade pay-it-forward posts doing the rounds on facebook at the moment. I am doing this and it got me to thinking it would be fun to do something similar to 'celebrate' the beginning of my blog. I've decided to steer away from the strictly handmade theme of the facebook version to allow more people to get involved. So here's what I thought would happen:
1. You leave a comment on this post and just for fun tell me either about a random act of kindness you have received or one you think it would be fun to receive. I'm happy for this to go international so you don't have to be in NZ to take part.
2. At 8pm NZT on Sunday I'll randomly choose 3 people who will receive a RAOK from me sometime between now and the end of April. I'll post on here that evening who the lucky people are.
3. If you are chosen it is up to you to pay-it-forward. How you do this is entirely up to you. It might be sending someone a random gift, doing something to brighten the day of a friend having a rough time, or a RAOK for a complete stranger. It doesn't have to be a big expense, maybe someone home made from stash, some baking, or extra veges from your garden? You might want to encourage your recipients to pay it forward as well to keep the chain going.

I'd like to think that this is a fun way to inject a bit of cheer into peoples lives in 2011. We all know how easy it is for life to get away from us and weeks to fly by in the standard daily grind, and everyone deserves to feel a little bit special sometimes :-)

4 comments:

  1. Great idea Alison! RAOKs make life a better place for the giver as well as the receiver. I like to do little acts - giving the elderly neighbour next door some veges from my garden, or stealing my good friend away for a gym class when I know she needs some time out.

    I received a random act of kindness this afternoon actually. My cousin who is staying with me cleaned my bath (my most HATED household chore). I just feel sooo warm and fuzzy now :D

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  2. Oh this is such a cool idea, I had the most amazing RAOK by a lady whom I have never meet, who went out of her way to pick up and send me a sewing machine I had brought for my daughter,
    She would take no payment for her time, but just asked for me to "pay it forward"

    I am the secret giver, I love just randomly sending unsigned gifts, it's so much fun :-)

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  3. I also remember a lovely lady who ordered some magazines from France for me and offered to help me out when I got stuck, :-) That was pretty cool too!

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  4. My lovely MTW friends sent me pak'n'save vouchers along with other wonderful goodies when we were having a really bad time financially. It made me cry and was so helpful. I still get emotional thinking about it.

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