Day 99: My kind Valentine

Being kind by leaving love-filled goodie bags on car windscreens in the hospital car park:

Happy Valentine’s Day! And Happy International Random Act of Kindness Week!

So why not combine the two, me thinks!!

How about some Valentine’s Day Kindness Bags filled with love-themed goodies?

And being joined by my helpful nephew Callum, I have all the ingredients for the sweetest Valentine’s Day EVER!!

I’ve been planning this ever since my  Random Act of Christmas Kindness. One of my favourite kindness acts so far, I loved choosing what to put inside my festive goodie bags and it gave me such pleasure leaving them on car windscreens at my doctor’s surgery.

But most of all I was incredibly moved by a response I received from a lovely lady who received one of these bags (see the comments section if you’d like to read it).

So the day is finally here, hooray!.

And I’m over-the-moon that my seven-year-old nephew Callum wants to help me. I love what a big heart he has and how his teacher is always commenting on how kind and helpful he is.

So earlier this morning we spread our loot across my bed, and had fun packing our 20 kindness goodie bags.

Into each clear bag, we popped: a red foil-wrapped chocolate heart, a mini packet of Love Heart sweeties, a mini chocolate bar, a highlighter pen, some heart stickers, a handful of heart-shaped jewels, and a feather or two.

We wrote kindness messages on my Kindness Cards. Callum carefully writing: You are amazing, and adding his name and age on a few. So sweet. And we also included a ‘You Are Loved’ card I’d made using one of my favourite nature photos I took last year, with a little explanation about our Random Act of Kindness on the reverse.

Excited and ready for action, we drove down to the City Hospital and parked up.

Although it was freezing, our hearts were warmed as together we placed our kindness bags on the car windscreens.

We even had the chance to give someone one of our kindness bags face-to-face: we spotted a lady heading into the hospital and ran across to hand-deliver a goodie bag. She seemed really happy to receive it.

We hope that when the owner/s returned to their cars after their appointment or visit or work-shift, they will be surprised.

And we really hope our little act of kindness will make a few people smile and feel happy, especially on this love-filled day.

Last week, I told the Nottingham Post about our little Valentine’s adventure, and we were interviewed and snapped by our city’s newspaper while in the midst of our good deed. Once the feature goes out, I will post the link here:

We then celebrated with a trip to our local Costa for a well-deserved sugar-loaded treat!

What really warms my heart is that Callum wants to take a kindness goodie bag with him into school next week for his ‘show and tell’. My heart is so happy to think that this small act of kindness may help inspire this younger generation to continue the ripple effect of kindness.

What a brilliant way to celebrate the start of International Random Act of Kindness Week!

Now back home, I’m shaking with exhaustion and about to switch-off and have a long soak in a yummy Epsom salt bath.

So with this in mind, my happy for today is being kind by leaving love-filled goodie bags on car windscreens in the hospital car park.

ps if you have received one of our Valentine’s Day Kindness Goodie Bags, we’d really LOVE to hear from you in the comments below. If you’d prefer me not to publish your comment on the blog, please let me know.