kvetching with a side of kindness

I have yet to maintain any consistency with this blogging thing. Over the years I have started many blogs only to leave them twisting in the wind, abandoned, and craving attention. For a while I had a pretty successful little personal fashion blog focused on petite fashion that mirrored one I wrote for Beep, a Paddock Publication rag. That fell to the wayside after I reentered the full-time working world from being a freelancer.

Holding back from blogging is most likely a result of all the filters that I, and society, place on me. Is this appropriate to blog about? Is this significant enough to put in writing. Will people think I’m a whiny prat for complaining about an encounter or expressing general discontent? Am I being a self-promoting asshole for constantly plugging my own kind acts? And so on, and so on. This whole practice is like trying to navigate a friggin’ minefield of logorrhea. BLARGH!

Now that I have splattered some of my brain matter onto this page … on to being a self-promoting asshole …

My company has large town hall style meeting every few months. Whenever these take place they order way too much food for us to consume while we huddle in conference rooms throughout the office to watch a live stream from the Hollywood offices. After the meeting we have a little Q&A, providing feedback. Following our last town hall I was pleasantly surprised to find that many of my coworkers were putting an emphasis on wanting to do more outreach and charity work focused around grassroots campaigns and areas that they were personally passionate about.

Once we all settled back at our desks a coworker approached me and asked if I would find a local shelter where the company could donated 20 whole, untouched pizzas to. Of course! Now this would be much easier if we were located in Chicago proper instead of way out in the suburbs where public transport barely roams and you are generally screwed unless you have your own vehicle. Regardless I hopped on the ol’ internets and searched away. Within 15 minutes I had found a shelter and arranged to bring the food over with my workmate that volunteers with me.

I made it back to work, covered in sweat and out of breath, only a few minutes late for my next meeting.

Now this #GetKind act wasn’t planned, or even necessarily initiated by me, but it struck a chord within me. In the suburbs of Chicago there are not enough organizations to deal with the population that is homeless, at risk of becoming homeless, or that needs emergency shelter/relief. Suburbs don’t equal posh, and I think a lot of individuals either forget or don’t realize that. The number of times that as a homeless teenager I slept in parks or alleys are too many to count. Back then there were no shelters or assistance available to people like me. So the fact that I was able to find Journeys The Road Home within a few minutes brought a little joy to my heart.

connextions through kindness

Just when you think that it’s the right time to lean back and take a little personal “me” time, things tend to go off the rails. I’ve lived in the Midwest for most of my life, with brief stints in Maine, Washington, and Arizona worked in. So I am pretty used to the severe weather that we are prone to like snow, hail, hot as all get out, and even tornados. It is that last little word on the list that brought me out of my relaxation bubble.

While I do love to #GetKind, my kindness is not born of itself, and it does not happen alone. I am pretty lucky to work with someone that thinks of charity and giving the same way that I do … It is simply part of everyday life and always the right thing to do. When that workmate sent out an email calling for individual donations to provide relief for the people that lost everything in the Fairdale, IL, tornado … well, I couldn't help but become a bulldog.

After a little prompting from my boss to, “just go knock on everyone’s cubicle and get them to donate,” I proceeded to do just that. [Side note: I love the fact that my boss was so supportive of an individual project when it wasn't representative of the company, and was done on company time.] In just under 30 minutes we raised approximately $371. Considering it was a Friday afternoon and half our office was working from another location, that’s a pretty decent sum. Armed with a list of items provided by the Cortland Fire Department, I absconded to the dollar store.

In the time that I was waiting to meet my workmate (often referred to as my work husband) at Costco, I purchased 20 coloring books, boxes of crayons, and small stuffed animals for donation to children (and for the sanity of parents that had bigger things on their plate). At Costco we loaded up two carts with water, diapers, baby wipes, canned protein, and a few other items. We then proceeded to load them into our respective vehicles in the pouring rain (why not, Murphy’s Law, right?).

An almost two hour jaunt to Cortland in rush hour traffic, and the goods were unloaded at the Cortland Fire Department. The all-volunteer department was amazed at the amount of resources and donations that were pouring in from all around the area. They were all set on water and clothes, so were uber thankful for the diapers, wipes, and pet food (can’t forget our furry friends!). My work husband and I hung around the fire department for a bit talking to the weary firemen and looking at some photos of the devastation.

Sometimes I find myself thinking what can the little bit that I’m contributing really do … how can my little effort make a true impact in such a large issue … but it’s not about me, my workmate, or even you. It’s about the collective effort that while they may be small little gestures, add up to something amazing. With that thought in my mind we departed Cortland and made our way to a wonderful little dive bar in Maple Park, IL, and had an amazing burger couple with a cold Stella. Early Grateful Dead on the jukebox, grease running down my fingers, and a smile on my face.

Followed by a long drive alone through the winding back roads, cloaked in darkness, and listening to some traditional Tuareg music on the local NPR station, I felt utterly connected.

getting kind rocks

I have been quite absent lately ... from normal life that is. My lack of presence can be chalked up to a few charity projects that I was working on, one funded by Random Acts, the other personal for the Annual Melee of Kindness (AMOK).

A few months back I applied for funding from Random Acts to create care/hygiene bags for those in need that I could pass out in the city of Chicago (that's close to where I'm from says the girl waving from Prospect Heights). After a few weeks of tweeting at, emailing, and Facebooking Random Acts, they finally relented and awarded me the funding. Within a week of landing in my Paypal account the funds had been used to purchase toothbrushes, toothpaste, feminine hygiene products, soap, shampoo, snacks, deodorant, tissues, combs, as well as some other basic items. I also spent several days jamming a five-page list of area homeless shelters into a double-sided single piece of paper.

Between me and a coworker with matching sci-fi socks, we got all of the bags packed and hashtagged #GetKind. A little bit more finagling and coordination with the Salvation Army's mobile feeding station and we were ready to go. I was amazed at how fast all the bags and extra products went. In total, about 100 bags were disbursed in three stops ... approximately 1.5 hours. For the time that we were out there, it was awesome just to be interacting, laughing, and talking with people. Four intense months of planning were executed quite smoothly.

Just two weeks later was AMOK. I roped my youngest nephew, who will be entering basic training in May, into running AMOK with me and my husband. We handed out flowers to residents and nurses at a local nursing and hospice center, popped quarters into multiple carts at Aldi, left random notes of encouragement around the suburbs on post-its, paid for an elderly couple's lunch, and rounded out the day with helping my mom pay for her insulin. It was busy, exhausting, and ultimately so fulfilling.

Today I was stunned when my picture from my first act of handing out bags at 10 S. Kedzie was featured in a Random Acts's blog post on AMOK 2015. And, let's face it, as a total Supernatural geek I was geeking out that my name is in print next to Misha's name, and I didn't put it there! So geeked was I that my coworker of matching sci-fi socks said the crazy was starting to come out of my eyes ... I tried to reel it back.

It’s difficult to pick one cause that I can champion because so many situations are close to my heart. Passing out those care bags reminded me of my late teens and early twenties when strangers were kind enough to lend a hand when I was without shelter, food, or basic necessities. If not for those random acts of kindness I could be in a very different place. Jumping on a Kickstarter campaign to help fund a film about suicide prevention, purchasing a t-shirt from Jared Padalecki’s Represent campaign for the same cause, or reaching out to a complete stranger on Twitter when she reached out into the void … all of these acts are spurred by what others have done for me in my times of need.

Anyhoo … all I can think about is what comes next, where can I help, and what can I do!? Luckily, my work offers up some kindness here and there, and I will be working an event on April 7, at the House of Blues in Chicago for their Music Forward Foundation. Post H.O.B. event, I think I may take a little time out and be kind to myself.