Share the Love

Serve the City Ireland Valentine's Day care box packing and gift delivery. #volunteering #randomactsofkindness

Last year, just before Valentine’s Day, I volunteered at work and packed Care boxes. This year, when the opportunity came up again to pack care boxes – and deliver them in support of the Serve the City, Ireland charity I had to do it. Plus, now that I have my full license – it’s time to give back to the community and make sure they’re being delivered as well.

Last Wednesday, at work, I stayed for an hour volunteering – and helped to write 80 cards while the boxes were packed. On Saturday, I went down to the Serve the City offices in Terenure (South Dublin) and we started all over again. First was the list on the flip chart with an overview of what we were supposed to be doing.

Serve the City Ireland Valentine's Day care box packing and gift delivery. #volunteering #randomactsofkindness

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This time, I folded the boxes and added in the red wrapping for each. From there, the boxes were filled with a box of chocolates, a small package of teabags, a heart shaped mug, and beautiful handwritten cards titled “for someone special”.

Serve the City Ireland Valentine's Day care box packing and gift delivery. #volunteering #randomactsofkindness

The boxes then had a gorgeous ribbon tied on them.

Serve the City Ireland Valentine's Day care box packing and gift delivery. #volunteering #randomactsofkindness

They were stacked:

Serve the City Ireland Valentine's Day care box packing and gift delivery. #volunteering #randomactsofkindness

After a quick group photo of a job well done –

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we chose the routes. There were 9 delivery routes around Dublin city – some with a handful of boxes, and some with multitudes of boxes to be delivered.

Serve the City Ireland Valentine's Day care box packing and gift delivery. #volunteering #randomactsofkindness

I chose a route through Finglas – and had the chance to deliver 20 boxes. They filled my car!

Serve the City Ireland Valentine's Day care box packing and gift delivery. #volunteering #randomactsofkindness

And then the deliveries started. I picked up my roommate and then we headed out – Some were simple – we have a care package for you – and others – we were invited inside, had a little chat, and really enjoyed seeing all those we were sharing good tidings with. Acts of Kindness are awesome! I hope my roommate enjoyed herself – and decides to participate again in the future. Volunteering for Valentines – sharing the Love – I think it works.

Serve the City Ireland Valentine's Day care box packing and gift delivery. #volunteering #randomactsofkindness

Serve the City 2016 Share the Love Care boxes day

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‘Tis the Season to Give

Happy Holidays!

I Just wanted to share a couple little bits of festive fun and photos from this side of the pond – that our team at work participated in.

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a) The Giving Tree – This year’s eBay giving tree supported over 200 individuals from birth to adult to make sure they had at least one gift under the tree.

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b) In addition, several of us donated food and canned goods to Serve the City. On Wednesday, We taped, packed, hand wrote & decorated cards for 50 Holiday Hampers going to the needy. eBay is gift matching and donating 500 Euro to buy turkey and hams and other goodies for the boxes.

Sometimes you have to #leadbyexample because #charitybeginsathome. 7am start to deliver 50 #carebox for #servethecity #ireland #weareebay Be the #kindness you want to see in the world. #volunteer

Serve the City Holiday Hampers Packing and Delivery 2015

After the dry goods packing on Wednesday, on Saturday, December 19, starting out at 7am, 4 volunteers from Serve the City and 2 from eBay arrived bright and early to finish filling the Hampers with perishables – apples, oranges, bananas, bread, milk, butter, etc.

50 Holiday Hampers volunteering with Serve the City 12.16.2015

Serve the City Holiday Hampers Packing and Delivery 2015

Once each box was full to the max, we closed them up and loaded the cars. A quick picture (my list of 7 in hand) and Santa hat on head – and deliveries started.

Serve the City Holiday Hampers Packing and Delivery 2015

50 Holiday Hampers volunteering with Serve the City 12.16.2015

Serve the City Holiday Hampers Packing and Delivery 2015

Overall, 50 surprise hampers were delivered to those living in poverty in the Dublin Area between 9am and Noon. They were so heavy, that they took 2 people to carry the box – sometimes a block, sometimes up several flights of stairs. The Hampers were well received by all I visited – Several elderly homebound individuals (I’m so glad you came! I needed food today!), several that had fallen on hard times (How did you know?!?), and one of whom was a lady in a wheel chair with her autistic son (Thank goodness! I wondered what we were going to do for Christmas dinner!).

Serve the City package delivery

The response was overwhelming – and later, we got an email sent by phone from one of the recipients:

hi, I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone for their thoughtfulness and for giving their time to organise the hamper for me. When I opened the box the first thing I saw was bread, I need bread today. Everything will get used especially the ‘goodies ‘.

Included in the box was a personal card from eBay- will you please pass on my thanks to them also.

Happy Christmas to all your volunteers.

(person’s name removed). XXX

Just goes to show – Little by little, we can make a difference. For me – this was the highlight of the season.

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Random Act of Kindness

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I did it. I finally ordered some mini business cards that I can stick to some of the random acts of kindness that I do. I think that kindness makes the world go around – and that when one can’t find any kindness in the world you have to be the kindness for someone else. The cards are pretty – red and black – and have a very simple message. Kindness is Contagious. On the reverse, it says “this has been a random act of kindness” and encourages someone else to Pay it forward. There’s also a link to a website which has lots of great ideas for your own RAOK.

Now that I have the cards, I’ve attached them to 4 Kit Kats and put them on the desks of my colleagues. Hopefully, it’s the first of a few to go around the office. 🙂

Doing my part to pass on some random acts of kindness today. 4 Kitkats x 4 co-workers... #weareebay #20forgood #ebay20 #randomactsofkindness #raok #payitforward #kindness #kindnessiscontageous #kindnessmatters #passiton #kitkat

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