Day 4: Anonymously buy something for a stranger

This is such a great day!! I love thinking about how the person reacts when they find out that a stranger paid for something for them.
I stopped by the movie theater and got out the exact change of the price a general admission ticket. I asked the woman behind the window if she would give the money to the next person in line and just tell them that the person before them paid for their ticket. She said, “uhh, I don’t think I can do this.” But then I gave her a Smile Card. Smile Cards are these wonderful business cards that say “Someone reached out to you with an anonymous act of kindness. Now it’s your chance to do the same. Do something nice for someone, leave this card behind, and keep the spirit going!” A stack of Smile Cards were sent to me by another giver and fortuitously arrived at my house today.
After she read the card she said, “Ok, yeah I guess I can do that. That is very nice.”

I then headed to Café Intermezzo (my favorite salad spot in Berkeley!) to pick up the salad my mom ordered to-go, I realized that Café Intermezzo would be the perfect place to buy something for a stranger because people who go there (in my opinion) would be likely candidates to pay it forward. After I paid for my salad I asked the cashier if he could do me a favor. I gave him ten bucks and asked him to tell the next customer that the person before him/her left money to cover his/her meal. He was a little confused at first, but then I handed him a Smile Card.
After the cashier read the card he said, “Oh. Ok, sure. Why not?”

And ‘Why not?’ is right!

Day 3: Shopping Carts

We arrived at Safeway with smiles on our faces and sneakers on our feet. As we traveled around the parking lot collecting shopping carts, we got a few funny looks and wanted to tell these customers what we were up to. One giver went up to a customer who had just finished loading his groceries into his car and she asked him if she could take the cart for him. This prompted a question out of him and ended in a smile. We were able to complete our act of the day quite quickly and one giver said, “Why not do this everyday? It’s so easy, yet so nice.”

Day 2: Free Lemonade Stand!

Well, our first word of advice would be that hot chocolate would have been a better choice in early January. We were lucky to choose a day that the sun was out here in Berkeley, but the air was still brisk, and winter is a hot drink season. My friends’ eagerness to contribute to the second day of giving warmed my heart. WarmGiver and Givingnome called me up and offered to hand squeeze lemons from WarmGiver’s lemon tree. I kindly accepted the offer, because I had been planning on buying the lemonade from a supermarket, and homemade lemonade is SO much better. I also loved their enthusiasm to get involved. Another friend, Spiral Giver, insisted on buying the cups and joined me at the table.

We set up again on Solano Ave with a “free homemade lemonade” sign and got started giving out lemonade. This event moved much slower than yesterday’s hugs. It was interesting how many people turned the free lemonade down. We wonder if that is because they were afraid of it being contaminated in some way or if it was just a different age demographic since it was mid day on a work day instead of a weekend. One thing that we noticed was that with free hugs, people just came and hugged and left, while with the lemonade stand, interested people came up and asked us lots of questions. They wanted to know why we were doing this (in most cases we guessed they were investigating if the lemonade was actually OK to drink or not), which provided us with great opportunities to publicize 7 Days of Giving. We gave out about 30 cups of lemonade and had some lovely conversations with other friendly and optomisitc Berkleyites.

We wrote some quotes down again:
“Oh yes, it’s good!”
“I don’t think I can, my tummy’s a little upset today, thanks friend.”
“What’s the catch?”

One man took a picture of us and came back five minutes later to show us that he posted a blurb about us on his facebook account with a link to this blog. Great publicity and a nice guy!

Day 1: Free Hugs

Overall, free huging was a success! At first we were really nervous that no one would take kindly to the free hugs, but after the first few minutes it was clear that that was not the case. An estimated 50 hugs were administered, and all were received in good spirits and with smiling faces. Some choice quotes from the day were:

“Have you had your H1N1 shot??” – middle aged woman.
“Even old people?? [especially old people! – Bryan]” – old woman.
“That’s awesome!!” – really cute 12 year boy.
“I’m too sweaty for a hug.” – Zachary’s pizza guy.
“I’ll stand next to you guys! Moose!” – Woman with calendar.
“This is beautiful guys, how could you do such a thing??” – Some woman.

Some people were not as receptive as others...some awkward glances and cold shoulders were shot at us, while others merely laughed. However, those people were in the minority.
Over the course of the hour we stood in front of A.G. Ferrari’s we were solicited to have our picture taken by more than one person and were even offered water from a kindly store owner. All in all, it left us feeling light spirited and optimistic about the days to come. We hope the free hugees felt the same way!!

-ScruffyGiver

7 Days of Giving, second time around

Hello! We are going for a round 2 on 7 Days of Giving. We are posting this a little bit late, but time is not an issue because these giving activities can be done any day!
Here is our schedule:


- Sunday 1/3
Meet outside Karma Kitchen at 2pm to make “Free Hugs” signs and then split up into groups around Berkeley and give out free hugs. Come at 1pm if you want to have lunch first. Karma Kitchen is located at the corner of Virginia and Shattuck in Berkeley, but if you are not in Berkeley you can do this anywhere!

- Monday 1/4
Set up a free lemonade or hot chocolate stand or hand out water at a local park or track

- Tuesday 1/5
Pick or buy flowers and hand them out to strangers or leave them in mailboxes and on car windows to give someone a nice surprise; collect shopping carts at a grocery store and put them where they belong

- Wednesday 1/6
Anonymously buy something for a stranger – pay for an extra coffee at a coffee shop for the person after you, pay an extra toll faire on the bridge for the car behind you, pay for two tickets instead of one at the movie theater and just tell the box office man that you want to cover the person behind you, leave money with the attendant at a gas station

- Thursday 1/7
Write 3 letters of appreciation to people who have positively impacted your life and ask them to write to three more people; call someone you haven’t spoken to in a while; tell someone you love them

- Friday 1/8
Today you can give to your friends and family: run an errand for a friend, make a roommate breakfast in bed, do your brother's laundry

- Saturday 1/9
Show strangers that the world is not so disconnected – converse with or give a compliment to someone you see on the street, stand next to in a line, or buy something from in a store. This will show the world that we don’t have to live as alone individuals, but instead we can live as one whole people.