I was thinking about some things recently, and I realized that I see and hear a lot of great stories through ItStartsWith.Us, but I don’t always have someone to share them with personally in the moment they occur. So this week I assigned the A-Team a mission called “You And A Friend”. My hope was that we would all be able to share a fun and meaningful experience while helping others at the same time. Here’s the assigned mission:

Do absolutely anything you want to do to make a positive impact on someone’s life this week. Anything at all . . . but here’s the twist. Whatever you do, you have to do it with a partner. Take a friend or family member, explain what the goal is, and both of you figure out what you’re going to do together. The point is to help out the recipient of your actions, while at the same time sharing the experience with someone close to you.

Here are my top three favorite stories from those who have reported in so far:

My first official mission!

I love the idea of working with someone to make someone’s day. I work for a start-up wind power company, and by sheer luck we were featured on NPR last week. As a result I got a ton of emails in my in-box with random inquiries about our product. One email was from a 16 year old boy named Peter with an idea for energy power from a water wheel. He seemed so curious and I was so impressed that he reached out to us. I’m not an engineer so I really couldn’t answer his questions, so I convinced our star engineer to take some time out of his crazy schedule to be this young man’s email pen pal. I let Peter know to expect a note soon from our star and he was so excited. Then this evening Michael, our brain behind most everything we do, sent him a lengthy email to help him with his ideas and to applaud him for his curiosity. What a dream for Peter, and I think a good dose for Michael about why he started in engineering in the first place.

This really feels so good. Can’t wait for next week’s mission!

I came across a website called “Cards for Heroes” that I absolutely fell in love with. People make & decorate cards, but leave them blank inside. The cards are then sent overseas to all our military groups stationed over there. The troops can then use them to write letters to their family and friends back home. I just thought it was such a great idea! My sister & brother-in-law are in the Navy, and I know how great it is to hear from them & know they are doing alright. I immediately called my little sister (she’s 10) and asked her to help me with this project, and she was absolutely thrilled. She’s already made several cards already! I also talked to my mom about it, who teaches a 2nd grade Religious Education class, and she is going to have her students make cards also! We’re hoping to get at least 100 cards made. If you’d like to check out the organization, you can visit it here: http://cardsforheroes.org/

What a great mission! Not only did it put a smile on my face, but it made my little sister feel really great, and will hopefully do the same for all the other 2nd graders who are going to help us out Then, hopefully, it will put smiles on the soldier’s faces, and smiles on their family & friends’ faces too!

I got the latest mission and kind of sat on it for a bit. Couldn’t think of how to fit it in the day.

But, then my (almost) 4 YO daughter really needed to get out of the house and get her ya-yas out, so I took a break and we headed to the little park across the street from us. It’s monsoon time here in NM, and we get some occasional heavy rains which uncover anything that is right under the surface of the dirt. She and I are big on finding treasures everywhere we go, so we had our eyes out for anything interesting on the ground.

I kept noticing bits of broken glass on the ground, and suggested to Cedar that we make it our mission to clean up all of the trash at the park today. I explained to her that everybody who comes there would like a clean place, with no broken glass, especially the little kids. She got it right away.

So instead of hanging on the monkey bars, or sliding, or making gnome houses under trees, we spent our whole time there picking up every single piece of broken glass and trash in the park. And then we gave each other a high five, picked up the crow feather and pebbles we found for her collection, and went home for dinner. She was very proud of having cleaned up the entire park for other people to enjoy. It felt good.

A side note:

Later that evening, I remember thinking that those monsoon rains are similar to a stormy event or experience in our own lives. And those rains wash away the dirt and dross covering the surface, exposing more layers for us to examine. It’s a good thing, I think. Change that’s out of our control is good for us, ultimately. It forces us to stretch and adapt and change. And you never know what treasures you may find in the process.

Thank you all for giving some of your time this week. As I often say in my emails to the group, I learn something new every time we do one of these activities.

If you have any stories you’d like to share, feel free to do so in the comments below.

If you’d like to join us on our next mission, all you have to do is put your name and email address in the box below. No BS, no spam. Just small suggestions on ways we can make a difference in this world – in 15 minutes a week.

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