To begin, let's go over the 2 gifts donated by the Oneonta Kindness Team. The first gift was from Domino's Pizza. This year, Domino's has been supper supportive of #OneontaRides by donating a weekly pizza party at the Kindness Station. When Ramon from Domino's found out about the 3,000th ride, he offered to give the special passenger a free pizza party. Knowing that making people smile is something that Ramon loves to do, I invited him to come with me for the 3,000th ride and present the gift himself. He gladly accepted the offer.
The other gift was a nice gift basket from an anonymous friend, full of fruit, jams, and other goodies. On the same day that I was scheduled to give the 3,000th ride and pick up the basket, I noticed that my friend worked at a place that sold pumpkins, so I asked him about taking 7 of them with me to give to a house full of students that we gave pumpkins to last year for a special and impactful act of kindness. My friend agreed and I left the store with 7 pumpkins and a gift basket in the back of my car.
On the way back home, I stopped at the students' house with my son and we gave the pumpkins to a group of smiling girls that remembered the pumpkin gift from last year, and knew us well from the several safe rides we've given them.
Although, during the first pumpkin delivery almost 1 year prior, we weren't greeted by smiles, or even greeted at all. In fact, a year ago, the girls may not have even been happy to see me. What follows is an earlier blog about how we met:
When Life Gives You Pumpkins, Make Up With Kindness.
It’s typical for drama to accompany drunkenness, and even more so when you’re dealing with six drunk college girls. This was the case when I got a call to take a group of five girls home from Jimmy T’s. Upon arriving, three of the girls got in my car. We chatted while waiting for their friends (one of the intoxicated girls kept calling me Jesus). I’ve given these ladies rides home before, and on this night they were extra appreciative of the service because they were out of money and couldn’t pay for a cab. Ok. So far, so good.
Then things got crazy as 4 of their friends (all drunk) showed up and piled in my car. For those keeping score, that makes 7 passengers plus me--in a car that can legally hold six people. When I told the ladies that I could only take 5 of them home and that I could come back for the other 2, I was met with instant protest. I tried to rationally explain how I will get pulled over and ticketed for having too many passengers--but they didn’t want to hear it. Instead, they wanted nothing more in life than to go home RIGHT NOW… ALL OF THEM… TOGETHER… ONE TRIP.
I’ve had similar encounters with large groups of riders in the past where I have caved and took more people home than I should have. But this was out of ignorance on my part because I was new to giving rides. Last Spring, the Oneonta Police informed me of how many people I can legally fit in my car, and I promised them that I wouldn’t break my vehicle’s capacity. Since then, I have gotten good at putting my foot down with riders about my car being full. Although, on this night, these 7 ladies were putting my resolve to the test. After unsuccessfully trying to reason with a car full of screaming drunk girls, I then got out of the vehicle, opened their door, and demanded that at least 2 of them exit the car.
As you can image, this did not go over well. I was called a few choice words, and the girl who previously called me Jesus was now funneling her anger to my newsletter clipboard and angrily scribbling a page full of nonsensical and mean sayings. Eventually, 4 girls exited the car to walk home while 3 stayed behind for a ride. I assured the 4 that I could come straight back and that I really wanted to help them, but they were so over me.
As I drove the 3 girls home, I discovered that one of them was sober. She apologized for her friends’ behavior, and she admitted to me that she could see that good that I was trying to do. I asked her that she please explain this to her friends when they sober up the next day. I also pointed out to her that during this short trip, I had already passed 3 police cars. Any one of these officers would have been able to spot an overloaded car and ticket me. The sober girl agreed to tell her friends and she seemed to understand my dilemma.
Soon afterwards, we caught up with 3 of the girls from the group who had chosen to leave my car and walk home. From my car window, I told them that I still had room for 2 of them. One of the girls took me up on my offer, while another girl seemed even more enraged at me for asking and told me “F*** you Jesus cab.” I then took my 4 passengers home.
Even though I did the right thing by refusing rides to all 7 of them at once, I still felt bad because my primary goal is to show kindness and represent Jesus well, not come off as a jerk and make someone’s night even worse.
Thankfully, I would find a way to make up for this during my church’s Sunday act of kindness.
It turns out that, for the following Sunday’s Mobile Church, we were meeting at the park right across the street from where these girls live. For that day’s act of kindness, we had purchased pumpkins to give away to people in the park. Unfortunately, it was a slow foot traffic day and we didn’t get around to the pumpkin giveaway until it was too late. This meant I was stuck with exactly 7 pumpkins.
I didn’t want these pumpkins to go to waste by having them not bless anyone. As I considered my options, I couldn’t think of a better way to be a blessing than to give the pumpkins to the 7 girls who lived across the street (and probably thought ill of me and my church). To make the message even more memorable, I located the clipboard that the one girl scribbled angrily on, and I wrote a message over her writing that read “Sorry I couldn’t take 7 of you home on Friday. Here is 7 pumpkins!” Michael and I then went to their door to deliver the gift. Nobody answered, so we left the pumpkins, along with the clipboard with the note on their front porch, hoping to make amends and share God’s love.
I don’t know what they thought when they found the gift. However, the next day I made it a point to drive by their house. That’s when I saw their front porch carefully decorated with all 7 of the kindness pumpkins, which put a big smile on my face :)
Fast Forward a Full Year
It turns out that this little pumpkin outreach sparked a desire with each girl living in the house to pay it forward and make sure and do one act of kindness each day for the following year. I know because they made sure to tell me this during the several rides that I gave them throughout the following schoolyear. Additionally, one of the girls gave a presentation about The Redemption Movement to her public speaking class at SUNY Oneonta, which included the showing of one of our #OneontaRides videos!Throughout the the following schoolyear, we were happy to give the girls in that house many rides home, and we got to know them a little bit better with each and every ride, to the point that we are now on a first name basis. Therefore, doing another pumpkin AoK and making it an annual event seemed like a great way to welcome our friends to a new schoolyear.
Our 3,000th Ride Was to Sara From the Pumpkin House!
Now that you know the background, you can see why I was so amazed when I discovered that Sara from the pumpkin house was our 3,000th rider, and I was happy that she was the one to receive the gifts.Congratulations Sara and our friends from the Maple St. pumpkin house. May this year have in store even more kindness, goodwill, and love than the year before!
#OneontaRides milestone: 3,000 #SafeRides! Congrats @BiggieSquals for being our 3000th ride. Happy that our #ClubMaple friends won 🍕 & jams! pic.twitter.com/RwdlGCsZYt— Redemption Movement (@RedemptionNY) October 1, 2016
