Day 7: Hot Dog Giveaway - 30 Days of Kindness

Hot Dog Giveaway was Day 7 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness Laura did the work. In fact, as we planned our 30 events, she came up with this event because hot dogs are one of her favorite foods, and as we both found out, everybody else also loves hot dogs. Here is a kindness report from Laura:

Having developed a love for what I consider the perfect hot dog meal, this outreach had to be done according to my own standards for coney consumption which follows these 4 hot dog guidelines:

The hot dog must be of a decent quality.

As a penny pincher, I have found that buying bottom priced hot dogs isn't really worth it. Buying tasty hot dogs is a time when it's better to let loose of those pennies. Today, I went with good ol' reliable Oscar Mayer Wiener, although not the most expensive, OMW is also not the cheapest.

The hot dog must be prepared well. 

How many times have we all gone to a convenience store and been grossed out after seeing burnt hot dogs that have been basking on rollers for hours? There is also the common homemade blunder of overheating a hot dog in the microwave. The result is a gruesome scene, like a heart patient opened up on the operating table, with a rubbery texture to boot. I cautiously coddled these dogs in a hot bath of boiled water, saving them from the fate of the microwave.

The hot dogs should be hot. 

Once the dogs were cooked, I wrapped them in pairs in aluminum foil to retain heat. I planned to do this last to keep them out of the cold as much as possible. I wanted to not giveaway cold dogs.

There must be a certain combination of sides, beverage and condiments. 

My favorite hot dog combo is two dogs, with ketchup, mustard, and dill relish, a cola, and original chips. This essentially was the contents of each bagged lunch that we gave away. As I prepared the lunches, I couldn't help but think how easy it would be to run a hot dog stand and how impressively Heinz engineered their dip and squeeze ketchup packages.
 

Rather than standing on the side of the road, or in front of our building peddling hotdogs, Kaler thought it would be best to call businesses, offer the lunches, and make free deliveries. I called several Oneonta businesses and Kaler asked around; eventually, we found 18 hungry people eager for a free lunch. After a morning of buying groceries, icing sodas, boiling dogs, and bagging lunches, I then hit the road.

I delivered free lunches to several of Kaler's co-workers at Directive, as well as most of the crew from The Village Printer (these two companies are volunteering their time and resources for our March 8 Free Studio Photos event), and the sales associates at Music Square. Inside each lunch bag was our kindness card telling of our church mission, our contact information, and a message of God's love.

Laura with the happy team from The Village Printer

It is our hope and prayer that through ministries like this, doors will be opened for us to talk with others about Christ. Acts of kindness are positive, giving, inviting, and they help us establish trust within our Oneonta community. This is an essential first step to building a trusted relationship with our town.

We want to invite people into our church and into a dialogue about God, and sometimes, it takes a dog to bring up God. Contact us if you want to help out and spread kindness!

Day 6: Shopping Bag Giveaway - 30 Days of Kindness

Shopping Bag Giveaway was Day 6 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness I hit my first roadblock and was shut down by store management. After I was told to stop I did, and I remained respectful and did not argue with them. I see where they are coming from, they are bound by policy and just doing their jobs to enforce it, nevertheless, it is still disappointing.

The idea with The Shopping Bag Giveaway was to go to a grocery store (one that shall not be named), purchase reusable shopping bags, and then give the bags away to customers waiting in line along with a kindness card and a brief statement about God's love (a, message that is more watered down than some of the greeting cards sold in the checkout line).

I was accused of soliciting. I had to refrain myself from arguing the definition of the word solicit, which is: to ask something of someone. Technically, I was not asking asking anybody for anything. This was a giveaway. I experienced no ill feelings from the customers. In fact, here was my approach. If I saw a customer in line that looked like they could benefit from this giveaway, I then approached them and asked, "Excuse me. Would you like a free reusable shopping bag?" Every customer took me up on the offer with a smile and a "thank you" and I ended up giving away 15 reusable shopping bags (and getting stuck with 9). After the customer took the bag, I then passed out a kindness card and proceeded with my controversial message and said, "This is an act of kindness my church is doing to show God's love."

Even though I was not technically soliciting, and my message was far from controversial, I was however confusing the customers. Apparently one reason that I was shut down was because one customer interpreted my offer of "a free grocery bag" as a literal bag of free groceries. After I moved on to the next checkout line, this customer then proceeded to fill his free shopping bag with groceries and tried to use the kindness card as a voucher to pay for it. Only in America.

Perhaps I should have asked permission, but I  knew the store would say no. This was the same store that would not even grant me an audience to listen to my idea about providing customers with free gift wrapping last December. Apparently, this store has become so PC that they have enacted a nationwide policy removing all community groups from doing any activities on their property, with the exception of the The Salvation Army during the holidays; and judging by the Facebook post I read every holiday season from my PC friends encouraging people to "boycott giving to the Salvation Army," I think their days are numbered. I used my judgement and decided that for a small giveaway like this, it is better to ask for forgiveness then to ask for permission. 

I remain committed to my belief that  doing acts of kindness is the best way to reach people in our overly-sensitive culture with the love of God. The Redemption Movement is a Bible-based church that takes the command to evangelize seriously, and we have discovered that in today's world, serving people's needs with a message of hope is a better approach than going door-to-door with our Bibles or passing out religious tracks downtown. As we push forward and do more acts of kindness to spread God's love, we will continue to learn from our experiences and discover the best way to do things.

I will close with a positive story from this giveaway. I gave out a shopping bag to a young couple with a cute 6 month year old baby named Emma. I could not resist asking about their baby. The couple told me this was their first one. The father went on to tell me that he loves her so much that he would also like to have a son. I joked about twins, he joked about needing to get 10 jobs if he was to support twins, and he is already working 2 jobs. One of the two jobs he is working is an overnight job at a retail store, the same job I had for 3 years. It is a rather drab job and I chatted with him about its hardships.

I then noticed that the mother was paying for their groceries with food stamps. I quickly pulled out our 30 Days of Kindness calendar and pointed out the Free Oil Change this Saturday and the Parent's Night Out on March 22, where we babysit kids and parents get a date night and a free meal at Joe Ruffino's Italian restaurant. The man seemed interested, but the team of managers standing behind me did not. It was at this time that they made their move and shut me down.

If anybody is interested in joining me and helping out with our controversial acts of kindness ministry. Feel free to contact us, we have 24 more AoKs to go before our big grand opening on Good Friday, March 29.

  

Day 5: Free Laundry - 30 Days of Kindness

Free Laundry was Day 5 of 30 Days of Kindness, and this act of kindness was a great way to sow the seeds of God's love. Except instead of seeds we used quarters, and instead of planting in soil we inserted quarters into coin slots.

For this AoK, I was accompanied by our good friend Virgina, she is one of the Redemption Movement's original "founding four." Together, we visited four Oneonta laundry mats and preloaded the washing machines with quarters. We then left a kindness card and a note that said, "Have a Free Wash On Us!"

 
Being a Monday evening, each laundry mat only had a few people. Interaction was pretty minimal, most people kept to themselves as a they folded their clothes. The best interaction I had was with a man who was loading a washing machine full of clothes. He stepped away from the machine long enough for me to slip in and plop a kindness card and $2.50 worth of quarters spread out across the top of his washing machine. When he came back I asked, "Is this your machine?" He replied, "Yes." I then pointed to the pile of quarters and said, "Here is enough for a free wash. This is an act of kindness our church is doing to show God's love." He muttered out a soft "Thank you," and I swore I saw a smile underneath the confusion on his face.

I mentioned what we were doing to a few other people as I loaded the machines with money. They all said that it was nice and went back to folding clothes. I was not discouraged by this lack of interaction, primarily because I have seen fruit from doing this ministry 2-3 times in the past. There have been several times when I would introduce myself to somebody new, and as soon as I mention our church they would reply, "You're the ones who leave money in laundry machines!" I very much look forward to meeting the new round of people that are touched with tonight's outreach.   

Virginia and I did have another opportunity to perform an AoK while doing an AoK. At the laundry mat on Main St, near the East end of River St., we found a man's wallet sitting on the table out in the open. We ask people if it belonged to them and it did not. One laundry mat patron suggested that we turn it into the police station down the road, seeing as the laundry mat office was closed. Because I am one to never miss an opportunity to drop a kindness car, I left a note and a kindness card to the wallet's owner at the spot where I discovered it saying, "Your wallet has been turned into the Police Station." If he reunites with his wallet, then it should be an easy connection to make that returning it was an act of kindness.

Feel free to contact us if you wish to participate in any more of our upcoming acts of kindness. 

Day 4: Free Car Rinse - 30 Days of Kindness

Free Car Rinse was Day 4 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness, the cold from the temperature could not overpower the warmth from our hearts. Winters in upstate New York are long and messy. Whenever it snows, the roads get covered with salt. This is great for traction, but bad for vehicle paint jobs. Salt and slush are caked on cars for 4-5 months out of the year, and it shows with all the rusted out vehicles on Oneonta's roadways. A good car rinse goes a long way at protecting a NY car from rust.

For this AoK, we set up our power washer in front of our building and offered to rinse the salt and Winter muck off people's cars for free. As a bonus, Laura made hot cocoa from scratch and passed it out to drivers as they waited for their cars to be cleaned. The temperature was a cold 25 degrees outside, making the cocoa a nice touch.

Traffic on River St. is slow on Sundays, and even slower when it is cold. We were set up for 3 hours and rinsed off 4 cars. Now, before you call this event a wash (pun intended), let me go into the details. Two of the cars were driven by seniors. Anytime that you do something to help out the elderly, God (who cares for the widows and commands his church to do the same) will bless your efforts.

One lady was 82 and driving a new Chevy that you could tell she was proud of. Her husband cannot do things like this for her anymore because he is legally blind. As I rinsed off her car, she waited inside where it was warm and had a pleasant chat with Laura. I was sure to tell her about the free oil change that we are doing next Saturday.

Cars number 3 and 4 where a straight-up answer to prayer and a testimony to the power of ministering with acts of kindness. The two vehicles pulled up at the same time, they both belonged to a middle-aged couple. The man got out, he was here for the rinse but did not know what it was about. As soon as I told him that it is a new church he replied, "I am looking for a new church." I tried to remain cool, in a county where 61% of the people are unaffiliated with any religion (much less Christianity), I do not hear those words very often.

The couple made their way inside the building and talked with Laura as I got my rinse on. When I got inside I found out that the man is a contractor who has the same days off during the week as myself, and he wants to volunteer his time to help fix up the place. The building remodeling job has been my biggest challenge with this church plant (a complete gutting out of an entire floor). Thanks to YouTube, I have taught myself several skills, and 90% of the work has been done by me, Laura, and a handful of volunteers. I have prayed for this kind of help for a long time. The timing and provisions of God continue to astound me.

As church planters, herein lies the value of acts of kindness; this is the best way for us to meet people and tell them about church and God's grace. We have been frustrated trying to socialize in places like bars and shows because we have found that most people tend to only interact with the friends they are there with (and having to shout over loud music is no fun). Laura and I are very relational, it is even one of our churches values, but we have many friends and coworkers who we care for and have been friends with for years without church, God, or faith ever being discussed.

Performing acts of kindness forces us to get out and meet new people, sets a positive tone for the interaction, disables social defense mechanisms, and is a natural way to bring up "taboo" topics like God and church. We are excited to think about all the new people that we will meet in the next 26 days!

If you would like to join us in meeting new people with an act of kindness, then contact us, we would love to meet you.

Day 3: Free Bus Rides - 30 Days of Kindness

Free Bus Rides was Day 3 of 30 Days of Kindness, and this was also my first time using the Oneonta Public Transportation. Laura was at work today, which meant that I was going to be riding solo. Personally, I am always excited to do projects like these, they are a great way have an adventure in your own town.

Before I go into how it went, I want to begin by telling you how it did not go, and that is according to plan. Being a newb to the bus system, I thought that I would simply stand in line at the bus stop, be the first one on, and tell the bus driver that I was going to pay for everybody's bus fare behind me. After awkwardly trying this out on two buses, I soon realized that all the riders either had a day pass or a student ID, and nobody was paying with cash.

I had to regroup. What was I going to do with a stack of 50 one dollar bills? The answer was obvious: ride the bus and pass money out to passengers. I mean hey, I was going to give it away anyway, I might as well directly bless the good folks that ride the bus.

I purposely boarded a bus that was shuttling people from downtown to SUNY Oneonta. I waited until everybody was on board, and when the bus pulled out I then begin to interject myself in the middle of conversations by handing people a $1 bill with a kindness card and said, "Excuse me, I am doing an act of kindness with my church to show God's love. Here is a free dollar."

The most common reaction was a big smile and a thank you. A few people seemed confused so I cleared things up by explaining the Free Bus Ride project and telling them that I did not know about bus passes so I am now handing out free dollar bills instead. Almost everybody took the dollar with the card, and several people asked about our church. For the people that asked about our church, I gave them a 30 Days of Kindness calendar and informed them of all the events that we have coming up, which included a mention of our grand opening on Good Friday.

 
Fifty dollars lasted two laps from downtown, up to the college, and back again. Between passing out money, cards, and calendars, I got to talk with several students. I talked with one young man from Brooklyn who is a Music Industry major. When I showed him the calendar and explained how we host shows and we are making our building a space that doubles as a venue for local artist, he seemed very interested in performing some R&B music at our church. I also had a pleasant conversation with 7 young women at one time from the Tri-Sigma sorority. They where interested in hearing about how Laura and I ended up choosing to move to Oneonta from Missouri. 

Several students said this act of kindness made their day. Others promised to pass on the dollar to another person as another act of kindness. There were others that showed an interest in volunteering for upcoming kindness projects; and the best part, every dollar passed out came with a message of God's love. 

Feel free to contact us if you wish to go on your own adventure for a good cause and participate in any one of our upcoming acts of kindness.

Day 2: The Big Tip - 30 Days of Kindness

The Big Tip was Day 2 of 30 Days of Kindness, and this might have been our most tasty act of kindness to date (a close call to make considering the funnel cake giveaway). The concept with this was pretty straightforward; eat out at local restaurants and leave large tips. Since it was a Friday night, and it was just Laura and myself, it actually doubled nicely as a date night.

The Big Tip called for a little different approach then we typically take with our AoKs. Usually, we make sure to hand a person a kindness card and tell them, "God loves you;" but with The Big Tip, we left our waitress a $20 tip inside of a thank you card, along with a kindness card and a personalized thank you message that speaks of God's love.

Laura and I would purposely order something small on the menu (we paid for the food with our money and used the fundraising money for the tip), this way the $20 tip would be more meaningful. For example, if our bill was $8, then the waitress would have in mind that she might receive a $1 tip. It is extremely rare when a tip exceeds the price of the meal, making the tip even more significant.

We visited three Oneonta restaurants, The Red Caboose, Neptune Diner, and Denny's. We posed as mild mannered customers, and ordered something small making the claim that we were, "restaurant hopping." Laura and I enjoyed our evening out together, and filled up quickly on 3 small menu items from 3 restaurants. We don't eat out too often, therefore dining out for us is always a treat.

One need that we wanted to meet was to show appreciation for all the food servers who work on Friday nights, a lonely time when it seems like everybody else is out having fun. Many waiters and waitresses get paid less than minimum wage because tips are supposed to make the difference, but tips do not always cut it. Plus, Christians have a reputation as awful tippers (even pastors), many food servers that I have talked with, dread working on Sunday afternoons because they have to deal with Christians.

We feel Christians should be the most generous people on the planet, because we serve a God who is generous with His love. Christians should be the biggest tippers and the nicest customers when they eat out at restaurants. We hope this message spreads and we look forward to the day when restaurants love serving the after church Sunday crowd.

It is too early to see any fruit from this labor of love, but we were able to see a huge smile on the face of one waitress. As we paid for our meal at the register, an employee who cleared the tables saw the card, smiled, and called over the waitress. Laura and I stepped outside, it was snowing, and we had just enough time to make it to the parking lot and watch the scene unfold through the restaurant window. The 2 employees opened the card read it to each other with big smiles on the faces. They both stood at the table with the thank you card open for a few minutes smiling and talking about it. Worth it.

Contact us if you wish to participate in any upcoming Acts of Kindness.

Day 1: Bathroom Cleaning - 30 Days of Kindness

By Laura Carpenter

Day 1 of The Redemption Movement's 30 Days of Kindness made for a pleasant evening. Our task was to clean the bathrooms of local businesses. The joy of sharing kindness outweighed any hard feelings towards the job at hand. (At least that is easy for me to say since Kaler, like a gentleman, let me take sink and mirror duty while he cleaned the toilets.) As we roamed downtown Oneonta, we became more acquainted with its unique shops and local culture sharing smiles and God's love all along the way.

We started the evening at The GreenEarth health food store. There a couple of young women sat at a table serenading  shoppers with their beautiful singing and banjo strumming. It felt good to tell these singers about our churches vision to help local artist. Next, we approached the Golden Lotus Tattoo parlor where a band of young gentlemen were running the shop. When we offered to clean their restrooms the young men informed us that they had an apprentice who took care of the bathroom cleaning for them, but they appreciated the gesture. One of them remarked, "That's cool. You never hear of anyone doing that."

Speaking of things that pastors never do, we next we went to a head shop called Twilight Boutique. When we walked in, there were local artisans selling handcrafted pipes to the store associate. He and the artisans were receiving of us and, of course, very chill. We enjoy doing acts of kindness for people who would least expect it from a Christian church. In fact, we do it intentionally. We want to send the message that no one is excluded from God's love.

While walking the streets deciding where to go next, we experienced the fruit of living in a small town and being intentional about meeting new people for 3 years. We ran into several people that we recognized and who recognized us. A Yellow Deli associate recognized us and invited us in and filled us up on free drink's, salads, and muffins (an act of kindness when going out and doing kindness). We completed Day #1 by making stops at The Eighth Note, The Green Toad, Cosmos, and Discount Liquor, and having great conversations with the store associates about God's love and church.

After scouring Oneonta's downtown we finished up the night at a rock show at SUNY Oneonta. The Music Industry Club (whose members have been volunteering at renovating our building), along with our friend Elio from #Occupy Local Shows (he put on our last rock show at our place), allowed us to set up information about our church at the band's merchandise table. There we enjoyed reuniting with "The Pants" and the MIC students who we have befriended. We also got in touch with some new students who want to volunteer for future30 Days of Kindness projects.

Day 1 was a treat and we look forward to 29 more days of kindness. Who knows what God can accomplish in the weeks ahead. It is exciting to think of what He has in store.

Our New Hampshire punk friends "The Pants" Hanging out at our table.

If you live in the Oneonta area, check out our Acts of Kindness Calender. You do not want to miss out on some of these FREE services. This includes, a portrait studio photo session with a print, an oil change, haircuts, parent's night out, community dinner and much more. This is all building up for our grand opening on Good Friday, March 29, and of course, showing our community the unconditional love of God!