Posts tagged random acts

“Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.” – Aristotle

We here at foyble love those large, inspirational, newsworthy acts that have the potential to energize lots of people.  We also think that living a life that includes making a commitment to doing lots of small but important acts can be equally inspirational.  You can become a source of inspiration in the lives of the people closest to you by demonstrating your ability to consistently devote time to helping others.

It may be that you find this daunting.  That your days are full of all the things that make modern life hectic- your family, your work, your friends, and the day to day activities that need to get done.  But foyble thinks that devoting a small amount of time to the GIVE every day is not as difficult as you think.  And it’s more energizing that you imagine.  We think that all it takes is for you to devote some small amount of time to thinking about giving and to resolve to look at the world a little bit differently- to try to regard every day situations as opportunities for inspiration.  We think that you may even find that looking at the world as one big opportunity to help others could actually make the mundane fun.

Inspired by the 10 day give (learn more here) we are committing one act of kindness every day for the first 10 days of October.  Of course we want you to check foyble.com out and log your acts of kindness on the site (check out the 10 day give group on foyble.com) but we also want to show you that it’s not really that difficult to get into a habit of giving.  We think you’ll see that there are rewards beyond the acts themselves.  So Check out the 10 day give group on foyble.com where we’ll log all of these acts-  you’ll be able to see all the other acts that our fellow foyblers have logged.

Try doing one nice thing for someone everyday for 10 days.  Make the acts as big or as small as you want- but make sure you complete the goal.  Try to see if you can find new ways of helping friends, family, or strangers.  See if you can change your outlook on life and experience the satisfaction of meeting a pretty good goal.  Maybe your habit of giving will last longer than 10 days?  Read below to see how we did for the 10 day give.  Leave your pointers for great giving ideas in the comments.

(check back each day for a new post!)

Brian and the boys getting ready to deliver the bread

Day 1: Thursday, October 1st. Today my wife cooked up some banana bread while I was at work and when I got home my boys and I took it over to our neighbors house.  They just moved in a couple of weeks ago and we’ve been meaning to welcome them to the neighborhood.  Besides the bread, we also gave them a business card with both of our cell numbers on it and told them to give us a call if they ever needed anything.  We can’t wait to get to know these people better!  We hope we’ve made the new neighborhood just a little warmer for our new neighbors!  Also, as we left my boys were so excited to go home and start baking bread for all the neighbors.  They’ve got the giving fever and the only prescription is….bread.

Day 2: Friday, October 2nd: During my lunch today I went over to the nearest McDonalds and picked up two $5 gift cards.  Everyday I walk to and from the train station to work and I wanted to be prepared to help just a few of the homeless folks I usually encounter on my way to the train station.  The McDonalds I went to at lunch didn’t have the paper gift certificates I was hoping for so I bought two gift cards.  On my way home I gave one card to a guy I see every night playing some buckets for drums and one card to an older woman.  Nothing drastic, but hopefully I made Friday a little easier for those two folks.

Day 3: Saturday, October 3rd: Our good friends Zach, Erin, and their 3-year-old firecracker, Landon, were moving from a teeny tiny apartment they had been renting to their first home.  It was an absolutely lovely fall afternoon with plenty of chair-gripping football games on TV to watch and relax from a very long, stressful workweek.  Did I watch football? Nay, I helped our friends move instead!  A couple u-haul loads and near crippling experiences of wedging large furniture through small openings and I was exhausted and they were thankful.  GIVE on.

Day 4: Sunday, October 4th: Foyble co-founder John Frazier is up in Montreal, Canada doing some work on an IT project.  Being across the border doesn’t stifle the GIVE, it only provides another reason to pay it forward.  John bought a new umbrella after a storm defeated his old one.  With the weather clearing out and the forecast looking up, John gave his new umbrella to a homeless person that will get much more use out of it in the future.

Day 5: Monday, October 5th: We cleaned our house and collected a whole bunch of older children’s clothes, women’s dress clothes, men’s dress clothes, and shoes for children and adults alike.  We try to put stuff aside when we don’t wear it anymore or when we buy new clothes.  So it turns out that we have some nice things to donate.  We took the clothes to a few organizations we like.  Here’s to hoping the clothes make their way to those who truly need them!

Day 6: Tuesday, October 6th: Foyble’s four-strong bartending team rolled up its sleeves and ran the bar all night for the very first Taste of Italy preview banquet for the Italian Festival this weekend. We worked our tails off, moved drinks, and gave out free smiles. We also collected tips that are all going to the festival’s scholarship fund. Remember to come by the foyble booth at the Columbus Italian Festival this weekend, Oct. 9-11 in Italian Village. Check out their group page on foyble.com for more info.

Day 7: Wednesday, October 7th: I have an “older” ski jacket, meaning it is in perfectly good condition but I just haven’t worn it in a long time because I have a newer one. It’s warm as all get out thanks to its removable fleece liner. Feeling the chill in the October air, and in the spirit of the 10 Day GIVE, I donated it to “Just Coats” through my wife’s work. I hope its recipient stays warm, toasty, and dry given its GORE-TEX outer layer.

Day 8: Thursday, October 8th: The guy behind me at Tim Horton’s got a little surprise.  I paid for his breakfast and drove off.

Foyble's booth at the Columbus Italian Festival

Day 9: Friday, October 9th: Day 1 of the Italian Festival.  There will be much more blogged on this later, but we started spreading the GIVE.  We focused our festival booth on raising awareness about foyble in the community to get people in the mindset of the GIVE.  Despite all day and all night rain and chilly temperatures, we were also able to raise some money for some of our favorite charities.  Sweet.

Day 10: Saturday, October 10th: The FULL day of foyble at the festival running from noon to 11:00 PM.  Foyble guys Brian and Jerry have put in over 22 total hours of time at the booth raising awareness about the great tools at foyble.com to help you track and spread your GIVE.   Jerry’s wife Georgia has gone the long haul too and we need to thank our volunteers Mike Reichert, Chris Young, and Francesca Quaranto for helping out!

Day 11: Sunday, October 11th: Wait….this was supposed to be the 10 Day Give, right?  Well, we wouldn’t be foyble if we just hit the mark, we like to go past it!  The Columbus Italian Festival runs from noon until 8:00 PM today, so we are loading up the truck and heading back to one more day of festival fun, spreading the word about foyble, and raising some money for our favorite charities.  If you are in the Columbus, Ohio area, please come down to the festival and meet the foyble guys, get some cool swag, enter to win ipods, and make a charity donation to great causes.  See you there!