The Happy Day Project and Jilly

I have the most amazing friend from college.  She has 4 beautiful children and an amazing husband.  She is the most real mom that you will ever meet...and it makes us moms feel like we are all in the same boat.  She writes an incredible blog called liferearranged.com.  If you haven't checked it out then you MUST!  It is touching, heart-warming, funny, and real.

As part of her blog, Jeannett has introduced me to http://www.thehappydayproject.com/  Each day, you do a random act of kindness for someone different.  Last year, my class seemed to need a little kick in the heiny about kindness without cause, so I instituted The Happy Day Project in my classroom...on a smaller scale.  We wrote letters to soldiers.  We made cookies and packed them up to give to our neighbors (although who knows how many of those cookies made it to the neighbors house).  We made cards for a family member.  It was a blast!  And the kids' beautiful little hearts just shined out of their bodies.  It was awesome to witness.

Meanwhile, on liferearranged.com, Jeannett was fundraising for the Epilepsy Foundation.  Her beautiful daughter Jilly, who my class just FELL IN LOVE WITH, has very severe seizures as a result of epilepsy.  They were going to walk in the End to Epilepsy Walk in November in Los Angeles.  We wanted to support them so my kids and I videotaped us reading a poem of support for Jilly.  It was so cool to see how amped they were to support someone that they had only met through pictures.

Fast forward to this year, same time....

The Happy Day Project is beginning again, but this time we are starting it with a BANG!  (more on the Happy Day project coming soon)  I decided this year that we were going to have our own mini walk to support Jilly.  So I wrote the note home to my families and asked them to support our little event by gathering donations from friends and neighbors.  We were then going to walk for 45 minutes in support of Jilly and ultimately the Epilepsy Foundation. In the process of getting these notes out, my friends sidled over to see what I was up to...and now more classes were participating. Well, yay! Now maybe the $100 I was hoping to raise will turn into $300. This is what happened when the walk started this morning...

More and more kids kept coming out...one class after another.

More and more kids. Out there to walk for a little girl that they had met and fell in love with through 5 pictures. They wanted to support her.

Our purpose of our walk was to raise money and awareness for Epilepsy...but something much greater came out of it.  Our kids were proud to be there.  They were proud to be supporting something that wasn't about them.  They were happy to see each other and happy to be outside.  The excitement and feeling of community was contagious....and overwhelmingly amazing.  Seriously, it was not that hard to organize this event.  The amount of time that it took write the letters home

and make the signs was far outweighed by the happiness that we had created at our school.

Oh and did I mention that it was raining that morning...NOOOOOO!  We are in a drought!  Why is it raining on the one day that it can't??  But you will not believe it...

Sunshine.  Just in our little corner of Watsonville...

But that is not even the most amazing part...

WE RAISED $1500 FOR THE EPILEPSY FOUNDATION!!!!!

Our little walk-a-thon.  Our one idea.  Our $2 here and a handful of quarters there.  

FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!

It just goes to show...

you can make a HUGE impact with just a little bit.