Random acts of kindness.
I went to a business seminar today at Hunter Business Centre.
As usual I came out with my head buzzing with ideas, but one piece of advice made me really think. Random Acts of Kindness.
Nana’s Weighted Blankets actually has a long history of RAOK but never really sprout about it.
It’s kind of a feel good thing for us.
But I was advised today by Quinita from the HBC that part of relating to clients is letting them know that we are a caring company and that we do RAOK.
So I’m sitting here at 1.30am unable to sleep, thinking of some of the things we have done.
One of the first that comes to mind for me is when a mum who had ordered a blanket emailed me to let me know how well it was working for her son, it turns out he had been diagnosed with leukaemia and was having trouble sleeping in the children’s ward and the blanket had worked a treat.
I was thrilled to hear it was such a success for her, but I felt I wanted to do more, It hard enough having a child on the spectrum, but to have to go through cancer as well is just so unfair.
So I asked her what toy her son would like, and we sent him a crocodile, I am told he loves his crocodile, and I am happier for having sent it.
I have not told this story before as it was not something I considered a promotional thing, but I am advised people like to hear these feel good stories, so I thought what the heck ill spill it all.
The next one that comes to mind is when we went to a Tony Attwood conference on Women with Asphergers, he had a few ladies doing a talk about their journey.
One of the ladies speaking so touched my heart, she had earlier in the day expressed a love of a certain blanket with had with kittens all over it and fluffy on the back but she was on a pension and couldn’t afford it.
After hearing her talk I had decided in my head that we would give her that blanket she so loved, but what made my heart really melt was that my son 16 at the time, who was helping me at the conference came up to me after she spoke and said, “mum, you should give that cat blanket to that lady” how proud I was, needless to say I gave the honour of giving her the blanket to my son.
He was shocked when she hugged him, very non Asperger’s thing to do!!!
My son Toby (7) classroom at Aspect has 4 single blankets donated, plus 2 weighted vests and 2 weighted toys.
Pretty much anything my sons classroom wants, they get, if you can’t look after your son and his peers then what’s the point.
When his teacher last year left to go to another Aspect class, we gave him a weighted blanket to take with him he was thrilled and said it would come in very handy.
My son has been part of Aspect since he was 3, in that time we have donated thousands of dollars’ worth of weighted items for various fundraising events, including, Sounds of the Spectrum and Frock On.
Every single time we attend a conference or talk we donate a weighted toy for a lucky door prize, regardless of whether we pay to be there or not.
We gave away a blankets last year when we did a survey, we found it a great way to get people to fill out the survey form which helped us to know where to spend our advertising money, but it was surprising how many people helped us with information but didn’t enter for the toy, they wanted to do their own RAOK.
We recently attended a Conference by Occupational Therapist Diana Henry, she was a specialist from America, specialising in sensory issues and autism.
She adored our weighted toys but said she couldn’t get one because it would be too heavy on the plane trip home.
So after the event we told her we will post to her home address her favourite weighted toy. She was thrilled.
As you can see, sometimes when we do things, its promotional as well, we get to put a sign up or hand out some brochures, but many times, no one knows what we do, it’s just a feel good thing for us.
so
When was your last Random Act of Kindness?
