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Saturday, October 26, 2013

Low-cost RAKS and RAKS for around your Neighborhood!

OK, I am absolutely crazy about Random Acts of Kindness (RAKS).  I love them, love doing them, love watching my kids do them and love being on the receiving end of one!  They are awesome - and what I love most is that it gives the recipient some love and kindness that not only makes their day better, but that they inadvertently (or purposely) pass on to others.  AND, my kids get to see how if feels to do something nice for someone without expecting something in return.  My only problem is, there are so many ideas I love and want to do, but they cost money (or are time consuming) and those are two things I don't have a whole lot of laying around.  So, I've put together a list of low-cost, low-time-consuming RAKS that you can share :)

Also, we live in a neighborhood where many of the kids walk to and from school (more "to" school than "from") - including us.  The boundaries for the school are pretty small which means there are quite a few families that aren't too far from us that go to the same school and are within walking distance.  Last year, for Valentine's Day, we painted heart rocks (an idea we got from my favorite blog to read...apart from mine of course ;)...The Happy Home Fairy, then we "littered" them on our way to school so people would pick them up :)  It was so much fun, we decided we wanted to do something like that again.  So, at the beginning of this school year, we "littered" pencils along the sidewalks with a little piece of paper attached with a ribbon that said - "God bless you on your first day of school." on one side, and "from Sunset Presbyterian Church" on the other.  My Sunday school kids helped put them together :)
Laurie's Little Monkeys - "God bless you on your first day of school" attached to pencils and scattered along the sidewalks/driveways so kids find them as they walk to school :)
So, now I'm always on the lookout for more ideas that we can do for the children in our neighborhood on our way to school...After some browsing on pinterest and google here are my favorite low-cost RAKS and some "Neighborhood RAKS" for the kids on their way to school :)

LOW-COST RAKS
Free Compliments for your co-workers. Great ideas as you scroll down the page.Take what you need.
Soooo cute if you work in an office.  I may put something like this up in the teacher's workroom at my kids' school :)
Thanks Kind over Matter  and Lottaagaton for sharing this!


Surprise heart attack
This is too cute :) You've been given a "heart attack" :)  You could do this on the house (which I saw on another blog), office door, etc - what a great way to celebrate Valentine's Day!
Simple and fun -get a pad of sticky notes and write nice messages on them - I may do this at my childrens' school for all the teachers as well...this would be fun at a hospital as well, "Saying a prayer for you" or something of that nature.
Funny - I have some 1-load samples of detergent - tape one of these and a little baggie with some quarters to a washing machine! 
Random Act of Kindness 1
lol.  leave notes in books for people at the library :)  You could say almost anything - "Enjoy the book and have a nice day"!  "You are wonderfully and fearfully made!"etc
Random Act of Kindness 4
Hide a dollar in the toy section of the Dollar Store :)
Random Act of Kindness 14
this one is for your family - stick sweet notes in their pockets (shirts, shorts, pocketbooks, wallets, book bags, etc) so they are found later and at strange times :)
Box of Chocolates
I like the idea of taking something homemade to the office staff where you work, your doctor's office, school, wherever!  However, I'm not sure some people would eat homemade food if they don't know you...so, if it's someplace you aren't familiar with, maybe take a box of chocolates or fruit basket :)
I love the idea to tape a sign with "You've been RAK'ed" :) And feeding someone's meter won't cost you alot.  
35 different Random Acts of Kindness to do with your kids; amazing story!  :)
What a fun idea :)  this wouldn't take much money either!  and i like the idea of taping a few microwave popcorn bags to our nearby Redbox as well :)  Tape $1.30 and a bag of popcorn to the Redbox and you've just given someone a movie and snack :)

Just finished a RAK today and thought I'd post it as my last one :). I used the idea from above and made my own "take one" RAK.  I thought of 7-8 things the teachers might "need" then looked around the house and dollar store for things that might go with the words ("wisdom"-smarties; "love"-Hershey's kisses, etc). It was a teacher workday at my children's school, and through some convincing we talked our way into the school :). (Having a volunteer pass helped). We posted one on the K,1,2,3,4&5th grade hallways and then one in the office and one for our specials teachers :). I think the kids had fun! :)  My oldest monkey enjoyed hurrying and hiding so the teachers wouldn't see us :)


Neighborhood RAKS for our kids!


Find your best balloon decoration with wowletsparty.
One that I thought of - go around the neighborhood around the school while the kids are in school and tie balloons to random places with a sign that says - "Please take me home and Have a great rest of the day" - or something to that effect :)  We are having a Trunk or treat at our church on Halloween and this would be a great way to advertise - tie a flyer to each balloon! 
Here's one for Halloween :)  Too fun!  We're already planning on who we're going to do this to this week!  
Phenomenal idea for using sidewalk chalk! Drive around town looking for places you can leave nice notes for people to read and feel uplifted :) Keep a tote of chalk in the car all summer for whenever you or the kids get an idea while you're out and about! LOVE this idea from deliacreates :)
Ok, this is so easy and brilliant - we could leave early for school one morning and decorate the sidewalks with sayings like, "Have a great day at school", "God loves you", "You are awesome", etc.  FUN!
Ok.  I know I put this one above as well, but I thought it'd be fun to do in our neighborhood as well - every parked car we pass on the way we could put a sticky on the mirror with a kind message :)


Random Act of Kindness 30
Plan on doing something like this at Easter - put a nice note and perhaps a nickel or dime in each one.  Don't think I'd do candy - the florida sun can melt pretty much any candy you can think of...but maybe a little trinket or coin.


Hope you got a few ideas!  Happy RAK-ing! :-)

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