Kindness is Contagious
So, some of you know my girls LOVE to bake! They recently have been begging and begging to have a bake sale. So this momma gave in and let them plan a bake sale. We had several discussions about what to do with the proceeds from the sale, and nothing really made sense. Then we finally hit on an idea; we would use the money to buy a friend an American Girl Doll.
This friend was not someone our girls knew personally-she was a friend of friends. She was a sad friend. Her older sister had just tragically died in a car accident. Her older brother is still in the hospital with various injuries sustained in the accident.
This idea was one we all agreed on. We would tried to earn enough to buy a doll for this girl.
This past Saturday was the day for the bake sale! The girls LOVE baking. They had loads of fun making signs and prepping for the sale. The day came and along with it, the two-year old got sick. My aunt dropped off the cookies we had stored in her freezer for the sale and she started taking my place frosting the cupcakes as I held the sick little girlie. There is the first bit of contagious kindness! Thanks to her, the sale happened on time! 😉
Then there were the kind people who stopped by: the girls’ grandmas, aunts, cousins, neighbors, friends, and strangers. The girls told the story of the accident, and what they planned to do with the money. They sold cookies, cupcakes, brownies, and bread. In the afternoon they found themselves sitting in front of a empty table!! 🙂 They were SO excited! They had enough money to buy the exact American girl doll that our sad friend wanted!!
Monday marked our first day of school. First official day that is. (More on that in a future post.) Our first day of school found us in Columbus at the American Girl Doll Store on a field trip! Dad and all!
We had planned to spend the day there shopping and having a tea party together. Our girls gathered the dolls they had been saving up for months to buy, and we headed to the Bistro for tea. It was lots of fun. (Poor Ethan, surrounded by pink and flowers and eating sandwiches and cookies the size of a quarter. Nevertheless he was a super sport. )
And this is where the story got really interesting. As we got ready to head back out to the store our waitress kindly told us not to leave her a tip. She told us to just buy something for our girls with the money we would have given her for a tip. I glanced at how much the tip would have been and decided, “Well, that is about the price of an doll outfit; let’s just get our friend an outfit to go with her doll.”
I didn’t mean to tell anyone. I hadn’t planned to tell anyone. But I did. I told the kind waitress, “I will buy an outfit in your honor for this little girl we are buying a doll for today.” She seemed very touched that her tip was able to help out in a small way.
We headed out to get the doll. After a bit, the waitress came by and asked if we had bought the doll yet. We had gotten distracted and had not gotten to the check out yet. (Have you ever tried to walk thru an American Girl Doll Store with FOUR—no FIVE girls?? Don’t judge, this is a store to get distracted in!!) lol
Anyways, back to the story, our kind waitress went on to say that they would like to GIVE us the doll. Read that again… They said they would GIVE us the doll. That is right. A $120 dollar doll and they were giving it to us. We just about cried. (Oh, well maybe one of us did cry.) They came over and handed us a bag, with a brand new Lea Clark Doll for our friend. They said now we could use the bake sale money to buy some fun accessories.
WOW. This kindness thing was contagious. Officially contagious.
We were a very excited group of gals picking out some fun accessories to buy with our bake sale money. Our kindness had just been doubled. God had blessed our little bake sale and God had blessed our efforts.
I pray our kindness, our friends, family, and bake sale customers’ kindness, Christine’s kindness in making the surprise happen 😉 , our waitress’ kindness, the kindness of the manger at American Girl Doll Columbus, all helps to remind our dear little friend and her family, that God does still care, and God does love them.
What a beautiful reminder about showing kindness to others!
Yes! It was!!