At Kindness Activist, we are always looking for
new ways to spread kindness.
But we also have some
tried and true kind acts that we do over and over. We repeat them, because they are fun and the
recipients love them so much.
One of our common acts of
kindness is buying a meal for strangers.
No, not a meal in a restaurant.
But a meal at a GROCERY
STORE!
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| Breakfast is served! |
How it works:
My partner David and I love
to grocery shop. In fact, we went to a
grocery store on our very first date decades ago!! Because we enjoy it, we find ourselves at the
grocery often. And sometimes when we are
there, if we have time and energy, and put together a meal for a stranger!
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| Fruit theme! |
We choose which meal we
are aiming for – breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Then we get all of the necessary ingredients to make it!
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| Dinner is on the house! |
If it is a breakfast, it
might have coffee, milk, cereal, orange juice, eggs, bacon, bagels…
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| Hearty breakfast ready for delivery |
If it is lunch, it might
have salad, soup, fruit…
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| More of a dinner than a lunch, but comes with dessert! |
And if it is dinner, we
might put together a protein, vegetable, starch, and dessert.
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| This dinner came complete with sparkling lemonade |
Sometimes we do “theme”
shops – like all pink and red things for Valentines, or a bag full of
SNACKS.
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| St. Patrick’s Day theme |
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| Wishing you a very Aldi Christmas |
It is so fun!
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| Someone’s having hashbrowns for breakfast! |
We then take a photo of
the items. Ideally, we take a picture of
David HOLDING everything. One, because it
is fun. And two, because it is
funny!! You can often find us in the
aisle at Trader Joe’s, David trying to balance way too much and me snapping a
picture.
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| See? It’s much more fun when David is in the photo… |
I then post the photo on
our local Buy Nothing group. I list out
everything that is in the offer and explain that we will drop it off to the
person chosen the same day. I explain
that the food is not “needs based”, it is “kindness” or “magic” based, so
anyone can get it. (Note: we do a LOT of needs based food giveaways
24/7 in the Little Yellow Free Pantry, so these special grocery runs can go to
anyone!) I also explain that we prefer
to give the food to someone who has not received one of these deliveries from
Kindness Activist before.
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| Neither of us understand the appeal of pumpkin spice season at Trader Joe’s, but we do not let our opinion yuck someone else’s yum. |
We then finish our
shopping, check out, load up the car, and see who has commented on the
post. We choose a recipient, get their
address, and bring it to them on our way home from the store. It is so fun!
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| This breakfast looks really tasty to me |
We have given these
special meals to: tired mothers of toddlers, people who are jet lagged from
just returning from a trip and haven’t had time to go to the store yet,
teachers on limited budgets, people who simply love the food we have chosen,
and lots, lots more. We do these giveaways
about twice a month (so often, in fact, that my phone can auto-type the posts,
which always start with, “It’s (fill in the blank) evening, and you know what
that means…”.
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| Ahh, that time Aldi had a whole POT ROAST kit! |
These small acts of
kindness have also allowed us to meet lots of people in the community, and see
new neighborhoods. See, the kindness is
good not only for the recipients, but the givers, too! And delivering these meals also introduces lots of new people to Kindness Activist!
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| Anyone hungry for a little SNACK? |
We have been doing these
special grocery meals for years now and I doubt we will stop any time
soon. Our Buy Nothing group has over
4,600 members, many of which are still strangers to us! But bit by bit, meal by meal, we are meeting more
and more of them.
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| Cheerios – they’re what’s for breakfast! (Along with lots of other tasty things.) |
Each meal averages $26.00 (we are savvy shoppers).
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| No, I am not running out of photos yet. Like I said, this is an oldie but a goodie act of kindness!! |
That’s not a lot of money in
the grand scheme of things.
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| Another BIG breakfast! |
But just the idea that
someone else went to the trouble of planning a meal for you, and took time to deliver it. Well, that makes these extra special.
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| Are you hungry yet?? |
