Year of Giving

When I made this blog, the concept wasn't just about fun and humor, but also about enjoy your life and sharing happiness to other people. Recently, I found the blog of Reed Sandridge, which called Year of Giving. Now, this guy is an example of someone who doing a real action to share happiness to the people around him.

What Action?

Since December 15, 2009, Reed Sandridge proclaimed a year of giving. Every single day since that date, he giving $10 to any person with variety backgrounds: a small museum curator, street musician, restaurant general manager, a shop owner, and dozens of homeless.

Every day he's taking a detail note about who he's giving the money to and for what the money will be spend. He then write all of this in his personal blog, not for showoff, but to inspiring other people to do some good deeds.

What So Special?

His kindness seems like a small act, but don't look at the sum of money he spent. He's no rich person at all. In matter of fact, he start doing this right after he got fired from a non-profit health organization!

Not long after he was laid off unemployed, on the third anniversary of his mom's death, he started his "year of giving". Her mother was the one who inspired him, "I'm doing this because inspired by my mom, she always reminds me of doing a good deeds even more when I'm in a difficult time".

The People

The first three times he tried, people refused, suspicious, and walked away. But every time, he's getting better at it. Sandridge tells people that he doesn't care what they do with his money. But that's not exactly true. When someone who is jobless and has alcohol on his breath says he'll buy a drink, Sandridge doesn't regret the gift but hopes the next $10 has a better impact than just another buzz.

Day 81 - James H, “I am definitely going to give it to someone else…someone who needs it more than I do. When you help others you help yourself.”

His favorites are those (more than 30) who say they'll use the money to help someone else: He likes to see the $10 snowball. A woman went to a homeless shelter the night after she met Sandridge and found someone who could use the gift. A Haitian man who had just learned that his mother had died in the earthquake told Sandridge that he was going to the island to look for other relatives and would put the money toward bringing satellite phones there.

Source: Reed Sandridge's "Year of Giving" Blog and The Washington Post.

Inspiration,

Fun or Not:

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