Jeremy Cowart

The day after I turned 31, I had a beautiful moment of feeling overwhelmingly blessed. When you have these realizations, they’re excellent reminders to take action and do something. There are so many incredible things that you can to do make a difference, and you can travel the world to do them. But you can also make a difference in people’s lives by doing the simplest of things in the world right around you.

My something that made a difference was a day of “random acts of kindness.” I recruited my friend to join me in giving back by doing kind things, in hopes of making people smile and reminding them that there are good people in the world. As we got our day started, I wasn’t exactly overjoyed to get out and be this nice. It was all very outside of our comfort zone. But regardless, we got out and did it.

Here’s our journey, our Random Acts of Kindness:

We bought a gift card at Jamba Juice. As we were getting ready to leave, a preggo lady came in. Pregnant Shannon handed it to her fellow preggo with a post it that said, “From one preggo to another, enjoy.” The lady was totally caught off guard and seemed very touched. We giggled and ran out the door. It was a good start.

**Please note, while I’m a photographer, all of these images were quickly snapped on my iPhone.

We bought some Sees Candy lollipops to give out. An ambulance was sitting outside of the store. Shannon walked up and knocked on the window. Two EMTs were eating lunch in the truck. She handed each of them a lollipop. One of the EMTs said, “Wowwwwwww, look at that!!! Oh My God!!!!” He was comletely serious too. It made us both feel very happy and again, we giggled and ran off.

We found stray shopping carts inside of Whole Foods, and put them back.

We stopped to buy flowers for later in the day.

The florist that helped us was a little rigid at first, for whatever reason. We went to the front cashier to pay for our items, and we bought a gift card to the store. We went back after she had helped us, and handed her a gift card. She was definitely surprised and touched. At first she didn’t want to take it, and then she said, “Yoooooouuuuu little stinkers,” and smiled. We giggled and ran off.

Now, I would like to point out that we are 31 and 32. And we’re still giggling and running off. That’s okay. We’re young at heart I guess.

We got some cookies from the bakery, and wrote a note to the firemen at the local station that said, “Thank you for what you do, and for protecting our community.”

Then we delivered it to the fire station. The fireman said, “You didn’t have to do that.” We said we wanted to. Then we ran off and giggled.

We stopped at Golden West College and wrote notes for the staff.

We left them on random cars throughout the staff parking.

We stuffed dollar bills in the dollar bins at Target for some lucky recipients to find.

This one was probably my favorite. While waiting in line at Target, there was a guy who was maybe 20, stocking the cold soda section. We bought a Twix and a Snickers, and gave them to him and thanked him for his hard work. His expression was subtle, but thankful. I mean he probably doesn’t get thanked that often. But he’s out there working hard, earning an income and being young. So I appreciate him.

We wrote notes to the police that said, “Thank you for keeping us safe, we appreciate you.” We left them at a local police station with Sees Lollipops. As we were leaving, we heard a lady say, “That was just sooooo nice.”

We filled the candy machines with quarters.

We left notes on diaper changing stations that said, “Thank you for being a mom.”

We wrote notecards that said, “You’re going to be a great mom,” and left them with the maternity ward nurses’ station, along with a few flowers to give out to a mom who was having a tough day.

(This was towards the end of the day, we were getting exhausted by this time…can you tell? Also, that purple bag is my “random acts of kindness supply bag.” Very handy.)

We wrote notecards to the nurses in the maternity ward that said, “Thank you for what you do, you are making a difference.” And we left them Sees Lollipops, of course.

We let a woman go in front of us at the valet line. She said we didn’t have to do that, she’s not in a hurry, but it was very nice of us anyways.

This was probably the best one of the whole day. We gave this woman a flower. She looked really taken aback and said, “For me??” Then her son said, “It’s a random act of kindness! That’s wonderful. Thank you so much.” That feeling gave me chills, and brought a little tear to my eye. We were sooooooo excited. Because yes, that’s all it was, a random act of kindess. He got it. He got what we were doing. Simple and nothing more.

We ended our day at the cemetery where our dear friend has been laid to rest. Her resting place is perfect and peaceful. We left a flower, even though she already many fresh ones. We had one flower left. We saw an older woman, alone, praying over a grave. We gave our last flower to her, and told her to have a happy day. And with that, we wrapped up our day filled with Random Acts of Kindness.

Here is what I learned from that day:

1. People LOOOOOOOOOVE Sees Candy Lollipops.

2. People are not used to having something nice done for them, for no reason, from a complete stranger.

3. I need to do more random acts of kindness in my every day life. For no reason, to no one in particular, just things that make people feel happy.

Will you join me?