While in Florida in November, my best guy friend, Stevie, and I had the pleasure of volunteering for SANTA'S ANGELS, a local org I support because I love its mission of helping disadvantaged families. As we were packing cardboard boxes with nonperishable food, we were required to write the family's last name on the box with a Sharpie.
Now, if you put colored magic markers in my hand, I cannot just write with them, I must embellish whatever it is I'm near, such as greeting card envelopes, etc. So on those boxes, I drew hearts, peace symbols, the word "hello!" and smiley-faces - just to "add a little something" happy that the families might see as they unpack their food donations. (Because c'mon, can you imagine NOT being able to afford to feed your own children???)
Snippeteers, as we go about our tasks in life, try to remember to "add a little something" ... a stick of gum or $2 lottery ticket inside a birthday card ... a 'happy birthday' message written in chalk on someone's driveway ... put a small treat inside a coffee mug gift ... return someone's plate with cookies on it ... cut out a cartoon from the paper to stick inside of a bill ... write a note inside your family member's lunch ... or whatever else cute and creative you dream up.
A small thoughtful gesture doesn't have to cost you a bunch of $$$, only a quick considerate thought, a fun deed or action.
As you read this, I am in Little Italy with my tiny old Italian immigrant ladies of the neighborhood, making PB & J sandwiches for Beans & Bread soup kitchen in Baltimore City. We will drop the sandwiches into brown paper lunch bags, along with a sweet snack and a bag of chips. But I felt compelled to "add a little something" so I created the note below to place into each of the 50+ lunch bags. I hope the notes elicit a few smiles and warm fuzzies as we help the disadvantaged with a small meal. (I also bought a pack of smiley face stickers from the dollar store to stick on the outside of the bags.)
Snippeteer Barbie F, one of my dear friends, does the COOLEST act of kindness I think I've ever heard or seen. On her annual trip with her sisters to Sanibel Island, Florida, where the seashells are just WHOLE & FANTASTIC, she collects large bags full, brings them home to Maryland, and during the summer, she scatters them around the beaches of Ocean City, Maryland. Why? Simply to delight strangers in finding entire seashells (vs. a fragment which is what you usually find in OC).
WHO DOES THAT??? Isn't it a marvelous act? Barbie "adds a little something" to a person's day with her thoughtful deed of seashell planting. God Love Her.
I used to have a colorful plaque hanging on the wall in my foyer (not sure why I got rid of it because I loved what it read) containing the poem, Love adds a little chocolate. These two phrases were my favorite parts:
Obligation can pour a glass of milk.
But quite often love will add a little chocolate.
Duty can pack an adequate sack lunch,
but love may decide to enclose a little love note inside.
Snippeteers, what tiny "little something" could you do today to help make someone's day easier and to help put a little skip in their step?
Add a little something.
