One month from today, will be Mikayla’s birthday. In thinking of how we want to celebrate her brief life on her birthday, we knew that we wanted to spread kindess to others. We are spending the month of June doing Random Acts of Kindness (RAOKs) in memory of Mikayla. We would love if you would join us in celebrating our little girl and helping others!
Our daughter, Mikayla Grace, would have been one year old on June 13th, 2011. We wanted to do something to honor her. The best way that we know to honor Mikayla is to serve someone else, so we will be spending the month of June doing random acts of kindness (RAOKs) in her name. Our final act of kindness will be the first big donation to St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison, WI for the Angel Memory Boxes and NICU Care Packages for Mikayla’s Grace.
We have been so blessed by the kindness of others this last year that we felt this was the perfect way for us to celebrate the short life of our beautiful daughter. Many of the people who blessed us were complete strangers, but your prayers and support meant the world to us. We wanted a way for those people (YOU!), as well as our family and loved ones to be a part of Mikayla’s birthday celebration, too. BUT, since you literally live all over the world, a typical birthday party would prove to be impossible. So what better way to celebrate together than to have a “virtual” Random Act of Kindness day in Mikayla’s honor?
Here are the details on how you can get involved:
1. Sometime around Mikayla’s birthday (June 13th) or anytime in the month of June, do a random act of kindness (RAOK). It can be for a stranger, a friend, a family member… anyone! You can do one thing, or several things… it doesn’t matter! See below for some great ideas!
We’d also love it if you help spread the word about our RAOK Day. You can take this button and put it on your blog (just copy the HTML in the box below the button), or link to this page via your blog, Facebook or Twitter! Let’s see how many lives we can touch.
A life so brief, A child so small,
You had the POWER to change us all!
SPECIFIC IDEAS FOR RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS:
The possibilities to do Random Acts of Kindness (RAOK) are endless. Your creativity is only limited by how much time you want to spend doing your RAOK! Below are some ideas to get your mind going! I’ve split them up into two groups: the Plan Ahead RAOK’s and the Truly Random RAOK’s. Thank you Sheyenne at Living in His Compassion for a lot of these ideas.
PLAN AHEAD RAOK’s:
1. Make some Father’s Day cards for a nursing home in your area. You can usually deliver these to the front desk and they will hand them out to their residents.
2. Make cards for your local children’s hospital.
3. Do you knit or crochet? How about making some simple baby hats to donate to Mikayla’s Grace or your local NICU or hospital.
4. Clean out your closet and take your “haven’t-worn-in-a-season” clothes to Goodwill.
5. Do the same thing with your kids’ toys.
6. Bake some goodies for your neighbors, church secretaries, or other people in your life.
7. Hand write some snail mail letters to grandparents, aunts or uncles you haven’t seen in a while.
8. Donate food to a local food pantry.
9. Make a Thank-you note for your mail carrier. Stick it in the mailbox with a candy bar or something.
10. Donate used books to a local library.
TRULY RANDOM RAOK’s:
1. Return shopping carts to the store.
2. Give a homeless man your change.
3. Give food to a homeless person.
4. Leave encouraging comments on blogs you read, but don’t usually comment on.
5. Pay for someone’s coffee behind you.
6. When you go out to dinner, buy an extra $20 gift card, and hand it to someone when you walk out.
7. Leave a baggie of quarters taped to the vending machines in your local hospital.
8. Put coins in someone else’s meter.
9. Mow your neighbor’s lawn.
There are a ton of other things you can do. There are endless ideas online. Here are a few sites with ideas here and here. The RAOK’s don’t have to be big or burdensome… its supposed to be FUN!
You can shed tears that she is gone,
or you can smile because she lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she’ll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all she’s left.
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her,
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her only that she is gone,
or you can cherish your memory, and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind,
be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what she’d want,
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
~David Harkins
Happy Heavenly Birthday, Mikayla!
We love you so much and miss you every day. We hope that you can see all of the lives that are touched because you lived, and someday we will meet again in Heaven!
Love,
Mommy & Daddy & your big brother