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80th Birthday is
a Superspreader
Sharon Martin recently turned 80 and her milestone birthday celebration turned into a superspreader. There wasn’t an outbreak of coronavirus, however – it was kindness that proved widely contagious.
“At my age I have enough stuff,” the longtime Simi Valley resident says, and thus asked family members and friends to each do a “Random Act Of Kindness” in her honor in lieu of a gift-wrapped present.
“I could hardly wait until the big day to open my birthday cards and see what RAOK people had done,” Sharon further shares. “I was like a 5-year-old waiting for Christmas Day.”
Her virtual Christmas tree had more than 50 “gifts” beneath it, including monetary donations to food banks, rescue missions and other charities while food and blankets were given to an animal shelter.
The RAOKs benefited the young and old alike. One woman donated an American Girl Doll to a foster child while several friends “adopted” senior citizens to visit by phone and drop off meals to during the pandemic.
One woman rallied her coworkers and put together 75 back-to-school backpacks filled with supplies for an inner-city elementary school. Similarly, two friends made donations to For The Troops to send “We Care” packages.
“My great-niece joined with others to help clean up the beach,” Sharon said and similarly noted that a 90-year-old nun has started picking up trash on her daily walks as a birthday gift.
“Some were small things,” Sharon continued. “My brother was at a health clinic and when he was leaving he found a pen on the floor. The pen had a special inscription about a nurse and he knew it was important to someone. He spent quite a bit of time interviewing all the nurses and finally found the right one. She was so appreciative as it had been given to her on the day she graduated from nursing school.”
One friend baked homemade bread and delivered it to a neighbor recovering from surgery, along with a good book to read, and another woman made gallons of apple butter to help raise money for families in need.
Another woman tallied up how much money she had NOT spent getting her hair done during the pandemic and sent an equivalent check to a family that is struggling.
“Residents at the Simi Valley Care Center will soon have a pretty gazebo to sit under,” Sharon happily reported, “thanks to a donation to the Eagle Scout project by Josh Hoover.”
One friend saw a man at Costco unsuccessfully trying to squeeze a large piece of furniture into a car that was too small. He brought his pickup truck around and then followed the man home with the special delivery.
Sharon proudly noted that Bill, her husband of 59 years, “is always doing random acts of kindness” and for her birthday celebration this included helping a friend take 5,000 pounds of donations to a Catholic food share.
Naturally, the couple’s three sons honored their mom with RAOKs: Chris went out of his way to make sure a food delivery got to the right person; Greg found a baby quail with a damaged wing and rushed it to a rescue hospital for successful care; and Tim cleaned out the rain gutters for the widow of a victim in the 2017 massacre in Las Vegas.
Turning 80 is a big deal, but how can it compete with the childhood excitement and cake-and-sugar rush of a fifth birthday or eighth or tenth? By giving, that’s how.
As Sharon concluded: “I can truthfully say that this was my very best birthday.”
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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …
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