Good Deeds

Did you know there is an International Good Deeds Day?  This year, it is on Sunday, April 7th.  Good Deeds Day was launched in 2007 in Israel with 7,000 volunteers participating in 120 projects.  Fast forward to 2018.  Good Deeds Day boasted 3,500,000 volunteers working on 20,000 projects in 100 different countries!
Businesswoman, philanthropist and Good Deeds Day initiator Shari Arison states, “I believe that if people will think good, speak good and do good, the circles of goodness will grow in the world.”
A series of unrelated events this past week kindled all sorts of reflections on good deeds.  When you lend a helping hand and do a good deed, it not only benefits the recipient but it also will decrease your own levels of stress and is good for your overall physical and mental health!
On March 8th, COWS teamed up with the Canadian Mental Health Association, PEI Division to encourage awareness of mental health issues and to try to end the stigma and embarrassment of asking for help.  Sales of their world-famous ice cream, special t-shirts and donations totalled over $34,000 which will go to CMHA-PEI.

​This past Saturday, I received an e-mail asking about new patterns for our adjustable looms – specifically mittens.  I’m currently working on our “Volume II” pattern book for loom knitting but it is nowhere near ready for distribution yet!  The person who was asking about a mitten pattern is a fairly experienced loom knitter – she just finished the beautiful scarf in the photo below.  So, even though I didn’t have a pattern ready to send out, I did write a quick blurb for her on how I would knit a mitten on the adjustable loom.  I was surprised by her reaction!  She was so appreciative that I took a little extra time to help her out.  It made me realise that something you might consider a small “good deed” might make a much bigger impression on someone else.

Then this Monday, I was the recipient of a good deed.  I was headed to a workshop hosted by the Central Coastal Tourism Partnership in preparation for the upcoming summer season.  This session had been postponed twice due to storms.  This winter has been a rough one – not a lot of snow but it always seems to be followed by freezing rain and ice pellets.  So many parking lots and fields are little better than skating rinks and this parking lot was no exception.  Earlier this winter, while taking out the trash, I took a hard fall on the driveway.  There was a large ice patch under the snow.  Knocked the wind right out of me and, at the same time, it knocked out my self-confidence about walking on ice!  I slowly made my way into the hall, walking through the snow adjacent to the parking lot rather than risking the ice.  At the end of the workshop, a friend walked over and offered to fetch my car for me so I wouldn’t need to navigate the ice again.  It was a small, unexpected, and completely lovely good deed – and I was gobsmacked by the impact this good deed had on me!  (Yupper – that’s me hiding in the back row, second from the left – and the good deed doer (Julia Cameron, Executive Director of the Kensington & Area Chamber of Commerce) is beside me above the “w”!)

This week I finally decided to take some time to organise my knitting and weaving materials.  I seemed to be spending so much time searching for what I needed rather than being productive.  I also find that, for me, a messy workspace blocks my creativity.  While sorting through everything, I came across an old Knit Pickers calendar from 2004.  The calendar featured 12 different sweater designs and my friends were my “models”.  Anna Howard was featured in December.  Anna was a delightful person who founded Random Acts of Kindness PEI.  She loved being able to do good deeds for others.  Sadly, she lost her battle with depression in 2017 but her sweet, funny, kind soul will never be forgotten.

​Just imagine – if one day of good deeds can help grow goodwill worldwide, what would happen if, every single day, we each did one good thing, one simple act or word of kindness?