My birthday was a fantastic success! 34 Acts of Love (& more) accomplished!
Mike and I started out with a quick breakfast of bacon, eggs and coffee before we headed out at 9am. I taped our itinerary to the dash to keep us on track and we were off.
We headed over to Loblaws first to buy granola bars & freezies (which we didn’t end up using – I had plans to hand them out at the volleyball tournament at Mooney’s Bay) .
Act 1 & 2: I offered to help a lady put her groceries in her trunk and returned carts to the hut!
Act 3 & 4: From there we grabbed 5 gift cards from Tim Horton’s. Gift Cards for Nurses & Retirement Home Staff and we Paid for someone’s coffee in the drive through.
It’s that time of year again! It’s my birthday on Saturday, July 16 and I couldn’t be more excited! For the past three years I’ve celebrated by doing planned acts of love. Because my birthday has previously fallen on a weekday I usually manage to do around 10 acts myself and rally my friends, family & social media community to do one act of love in my honour so that all the acts combined add up to my age!
Here’s how 33 turned out. This year I’m turning 34 on Saturday. Since my birthday falls on a weekend, my boyfriend, Mike and I are going to attempt to do all 34 acts together!
Of course I’d still love if you commit an act of kindness in my honour and bring a little bit more love into the world this weekend. If you feel like documenting it please share it on social media with the hashtag #34actsoflove & #randomactsofkindness.
Here are 24 acts we’re going to try and commit. Mike told me that he planned 10 surprises ones so I only had to come up with 24.
Buy coffee for someone in line behind me
Buy granola bars for the homeless
Bring clothes to a homeless shelter
Put motivational quotes on cars
Buy flowers and hand out to ladies
Help a senior put their grocery bags in their car
Return grocery carts to their huts
Bring flowers to a retirement home
Write thank you cards for local firemen & policemen
Free hugs
Hand out $5 Kobo gift cards
Looney on a vending machine
Looney on parking meters
Walk dogs at the Humane Society
Bring healthy muffins to the staff at the Humane Society
Get well cards to sick kids at CHEO
Gift certificates for coffee to nurses
Colouring books for kids at a park
Mike is going to donate blood in my honour
Pick up garbage on the parkway
High five runners on the parkway
Drop of canned goods to food bank
Mow a neighbour’s lawn
Bake desserts for neighbours
+ 10 Secrets Ones Mike Apparently Has Planned for Us
Stay tuned for an update of how the day went next week!
My birthday was a beautiful day with 32 acts of love. It may have been a random hump day in the middle of the week but I was full of so much love and gratitude for people in my life both in my city and across the country. I know I reserve one day a year for tons of acts of kindness but there is something to this feeling you get and I should definitely make more of an effort to incorporate selfless actions more into my life. So here’s how the day went…
1. I got up nice and early to hit the gym before work. As I was getting off the streetcar I handed a thank you note to the driver. He made a point of saying good morning to everyone getting on the streetcar so I hope I helped brightened his day.
2. When I got to the gym I put a motivational quote in a gym locker. I really hope whoever found it through the day actually read it and didn’t think it was garbage and threw it out.
3. My dear friends at Popeye’s Supplements have been in my life for 3 crazy years. I’ve known them since I began my sponsorship with Magnum Nutraceuticals. The newest store just opened up on the Danforth and I had a demo there the night before my bday. Andrew the store manager wonderfully donated $10 off coupons. I stapled sample packs of our pre-workout Serum to the cards and handed them out at the gym after my workout. I think I did it a bit creepily and would hand it to people and say “I have a gift for you” in a lower voice of course because that doesn’t make me weird lol.
4. And my final morning act before rushing to the office was to use my Starbucks birthday reward on an unsuspecting woman. There was no one behind me in line when I arrived so I told the staff what I wanted to do. A woman rushed into the store. Didn’t even go behind me but plopped her purse on the counter in front of me and started rummaging for her wallet. She ordered her coffee and the teller rang it in. We scanned my app super fast and I ran out before the lady could even look up. I really truly hope that brightened her day and she passed on some kindness later.
5. I have a love affair with cupcakes from Fresh. They are baked at Sweets from the Earth bakery so I put in an order during the week and they arrived before 10am. I was supposed to be in a large meeting so I was going to just show up and plop them on the table and smile but instead walked around with them to hand them out. I loved the shocked look when people asked if it was 1. my birthday and 2. did I buy my own cupcakes and 3. when I announced they were healthier versions! I even saved one for myself 🙂
6. Lunch time came with more fun. I printed off colourful happy quotes and plastered them on cars around my work neighbourhood.
7. I zipped over to Metro to grab a bouquet of my favourite flowers, Gerber Daisies and handed them out to woman on my way back to the office. Every single one of those ladies smiled so huge receiving one.
One of my friends joined me and snapped a creeper shot of me handing out my last two. I think I picked the exact same flower colour last year as well so that was kind of cool.
Finally to round out the day the universe decided to give me two opportunities I hadn’t planned on.
8. Someone from my past who I was having a very hard time forgiving walked into the gym as I was on the spin bike getting 30 mins of cardio in. I’ve usually ignored them as I do evening cardio but this time I looked up and smiled and genuinely felt at peace. That random act of love was for myself but I hope they could feel the forgiveness in my smile.
9. And then I was off to my next location for good deeds and was presented with an opportunity to help an older man lower his grocery cart off the streetcar. Another lady helped as well and I was standing there grinning like a lunatic.
10. I met my boyfriend at City Place so we could spoil our run club friends at Tribe Fitness. We gave them all water bottles after their hard run.
11. My boyfriend also bought a box of granola bars so we could find some homeless people on our way uptown. We drove up Yonge for a bit until a found a man outside a fast food place. I placed all of them in his hat and hope it made a small difference in his day.
12. The final act of the night was buying a green tea for the night concierge at my building. He actually said “How’d you know I’d need one?”
And then my friends created so much love they had me happy crying every time I saw a post or read a text.
13. Kyla is a personal trainer and trained all her clients for free yesterday!
14. Serena dropped off lunch & flowers to a friend at her work and brought chocolates for all her co-workers!
15. Aubrie left $75 for Rooster Coffee House to use for customers all day! They even tweeted about it!
16. Erin was selling a couch for $200 and when the people showed up to buy it she gave it to them for free.
17. Krysten bought coffee for three people in line behind her in the morning
18. Morgan bought a coffee for her coworker after she bought a new latte that she didn’t like and then surprised her coworkers with doughnuts later in the day
19. Chivon bought food for a homeless person on her way home
20. Todd bought lunch for a woman in her 80s and said it felt like pure magic
21. Jenna baked homemade sugar cookies and dropped them off at an animal shelter for the staff (I even got my own goody bag when I surprised Tribe)
22. Olivier baked cookies for his coworkers
23. Clifton paid off late fees for two patrons of the Fort York Library (they even posted about it!)
24. Jess bought someone tea in line behind her
25. Katie bought lunch for someone, bought coffee for the office & held doors open for people longer than she would have normally
26. Tracey gave away 5 free massages to people who don’t have benefits and offered 2 free massages to 2 people of my suggestion
27. Patrick cleaned up the mess someone’s dog left at the entrance of his building so that nobody could accidentally step in it
28. Allegra left a Starbucks card for the maid at her hotel room in Nashville
29. Rachelle gave directions to a lost family at Union Station
30. Barb paid for someone’s coffee
31. Axel let the nanny go home early
32. Joe bumped up a paycheque by a few dollars
33. Ray cut up / removed two large trees that fell in his elderly neighbour’s yard
34. Annie baked healthy muffins for friends and neighbours
35. Allison gave a larger tip at dinner
36. Abe 3 days ago stopped to help an injured runner during a race
Today I’m 32 in adult years and 36 in love years. I am thankful, grateful and feel truly blessed. It is so awesome to see our world full of a little bit more love.
I was perusing through Pinterest one day and found an amazing image (the one below) that led me to this blog post.
First things first – WE SHARE A NAME!! Ok I was a bit too excited about that. Second of all I was in happy tears reading her post. This is the most selfless and amazing thing someone can do on their birthday. In a world where way too much pressure is put on having an amazing day, I just simply love this idea. No getting drunk. No monetary gifts for me. Just giving of oneself.
The reason why I really want to do it on my 31st birthday is because I turned 30 last year and it was not good. It was supposed to be a big year for me. THE BIG 3.0. I can’t help but reflect back. I turned the big number then ran Warrior Dash with my girls a couple days later. I took myself out of my comfort zone and felt so accomplished and then a couple days after that I was calling off my wedding a month before the big day. My 30th birthday marked a time that was not good and everything that it was NOT supposed to be. So this year. At the beginning of my 31st birthday month I am planning the best gift to myself that I could think of. I want to give away 31 acts of love. In the other Robyn’s blog post she calls them random acts of kindness but they were pre-planned with love. So I’m calling my birthday this year 31 acts of love.
My birthday is July 16 so it falls on a Tuesday this year. I know that I can’t complete 31 acts all by myself and work full time so I’m asking for help from my family and friends. The below list is 10 things that I’m going to do personally on my birthday. I now need 21 people in my life to join in and come up with one act of love to do on my birthday. From the social media realm to in real life friends to family I would love for you to commit to one act of love on my bday. Will you spread love to someone who may need it that day?
Please comment on the blog post on what you’d like to do! Then on July 16th we’ll celebrate by giving love and sharing it on Instagram (#31actsoflove). Are you in?
Robyn’s 10 Acts of Love
1. Pay for 5 people’s orders at Starbucks in the morning.
2. Hand written thank you notes to every street car or subway employee I see that day.
3. Take a bag of fitness gear to the women’s shelter.
4. Offer to carry grocery bags for elderly people from the grocery store to their car.
5. Place happiness quotes on car windshields at the grocery store.
6. Take stuffed animals to Sick Kids Hospital.
7. Bring water bottles with emergen C packages to the nurses at the Hospital.
8. Bring baked goods to my 3 neighbours on all sides of me in the condo.
9. Offer to take my neighbours garbage or recycling out.
