Folk Show for the Hungry

Day 17: Folk Show for the Hungry

By Laura Carpenter

Thanks to the lovely ladies from SkyanI (pronounced Sky and I) for helping make this AoK happen! For a few weeks we were wondering if AoK #17 would ever be. Kaler had been calling and chasing down bands for quite some time, but to no avail. It was the Saturday night before St. Patty's Day and around here that means many young adults and musicians have plans to engage in some kind of revelry. Finally, SkyanI accepted our invitation to play at The Redemption Movement and the event was on! Since we were unable to get any other bands on the bill, I seized the opportunity to subject the audience to a few songs of my own. Admission was $5 or a bag of non-perishable food items and all proceeds were donated to The Lord's Table, a free meal service provided daily by St. James Episcopal Church.

I accomplished a personal victory while doing this AoK. I wrote a song ten years ago called Short Skirt (a satirical song about immodesty). The guitar line has a lot of finger picking in it, which I am not accustomed to doing in public. I get nervous when performing and it results in some shaky hands.  I discovered this problem back in junior high. At that time, I had been practicing the song Fur Elise for months and had it down. I especially loved playing the runs at the end. However, the night of a piano recital, it all broke down. I was nervous and my hands were shaky. The song had been going just fine, but when I got to the runs I lost all control and dexterity. My hands felt like fingerless nubs. I botched the runs. I started them a second time and botched it again. I knew I could play them, so I tried a third time to play the notes and my fingers were simply not responding. My mind went completely blank and I didn't know where to pick up again with the song. So, I put my hands in my lap, let out a sigh of defeat and exited the stage. Later that night I felt powerless to control my nerves and wondered if I would ever be able to perform music ever again.

I took up trombone in high school. Trombone requires no dexterity because it's a slide instrument and I did well with it. I had forgotten about my performance jitters, but while studying music in college the problem returned. 

In college, I was required to perform vocal solos and piano solos in front of a judge of professors. I remember just laughing at myself as I played piano at an adjudication feeling that my hands had virtually been disconnected from my brain.  They limped along as I played a song I could play note for note when alone in a practice room. I remember singing vocal solos in rehearsal with my voice teacher exclaiming, “Laura, that was so good I got shivers up my spine!”, but in performance I could barely squeak out the high notes because my throat and chest tightened up. I looked at my teacher in the audience and the expression on her face was shock and bewilderment.

All of this goes to say that ten years ago I wrote a song that I wanted to perform for others, but felt I would be unable to do so, due to nerves. I literally had visions of being on stage trying to play it, but my fingers turning to useless stubble and me having to exit stage in defeat.

 Last Saturday night I faced that fear head on. After some practice and a calming Kava tea, I played my song for a small group of strangers for the first time. I was able to play it through completely and my fingers didn't miss a note! Even though the audience was small, it was a big personal victory for me. I love writing songs and I desperately want to be able to play them for others. Fear tries to keep my musical passion under lock and key, but with God's help, and a husband who keeps pushing me into scary situations, I am slowly but surely breaking free from fear.

 SkyanI then took the stage. They are an indie-folk band composed of three young ladies.  The three of them sing harmoniously while one of them also accompanies on an acoustic guitar.  Since there were no other bands, they were free to treat us to just about every song they knew. They covered a wide range of songs such as Gigantic by the Pixies, Mr. Saxobeat by Alexandra Stan, and Animal Tracks by Mountain Man. SkyanI also played several well written originals.



Their voices and harmonies blended beautifully and their melodies were enchanting. Kalil's guitar strumming resonated gently through the room. We thank them for sharing their songs and their time with us and look forward to having them back again. Thanks to their participation we were able to follow through with AoK #17 and collect some money and food for The Lord's Table.

Day 15: Bathroom Cleaning #2 - 30 Days of Kindness

Day 15 of 30 Days of Kindness was Bathroom Cleaning #2, and for this act of kindness we got down low to exalt He who reigns on high!

Originally, we were scheduled for a door-to-door light bulb giveaway, but with the weather being in the 20s with snow and 30mph winds, even a warm public bathroom was preferable to being outside. For us, visiting Oneonta businesses and cleaning their bathrooms as an act of kindness is an easy and inexpensive activity to do. It sounds weird, but this is one of our favorite AoKs. Cleaning the restrooms of businesses was the first AoK that our church performed for our community, and it was what we did on Day #1 of this 30 Days of Kindness campaign.

Laura and I have cleaning public restrooms down to a routine. We have a designated bucket of supplies ready to go, and we make a great cleaning team. I roll up my sleeves and hit the toilets and Laura cleans the sinks and mirrors. We again went to Oneonta's downtown to visit the businesses that we missed on round 1, as a bonus, a strip of businesses lined up next to each other meant less walking outside in the cold.

The first place we cleaned was one of our favorite coffee shops Capresso Coffee Bar. We have visited here many times as customers, but this was our first visit to Capresso as cleaners. Being a Thursday evening, it was not too busy, which gave us a good opportunity to get to know the clerk. He is a young Jamaican man named Klasic, who seemed a little confused by our gesture. It took a little convincing to let us clean the bathroom, but he eventually gave us the go ahead.

Laura and I made the bathroom sparkle, and when we came out Klasic greeted us with free hot beverages. We insisted that this AoK was a free service, but he was intent on rewarding our efforts with premium hot beverages. As we sipped our beverages, I got to talk to Klasic about Jamaican ska music (a passion of mine) and I invited him to an upcoming a ska show that we are having.

Klasic seemed touched by our cleaning efforts, but at the same time he admitted that his first thought was that it was a little weird (I can't argue with that). That gave me an opportunity to explain our motives, how Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve, and how we believe this means Christians are to be servants to our community. Klasic asked us, "Are you doing this for Lent." We answered no, but at the same time, this is very much like Lent for us. I can definitely see this being an annual Lent-like tradition for our church, except instead of sacrificing for a season, we give.

It was encouraging to share the Gospel with our new friend, we told him that we would be back to wash his windows next week. We then stopped at Sal's Pizza. They let us clean, but business picked up and they got too busy to talk with us. As a rule, we try and pick businesses that are not busy for bathroom cleaning, this will give us time to talk with workers.

We next went to Pyramid Liqueur Store, this was an interesting stop because we cleaned their bathroom almost 3 years ago, and to our delight the same clerk was working and he remembered us. We knew where to go and gave that bathroom the Redemption Movement treatment. Bill was the guy working that night, and we got to chat with him for 10-15 minutes about church and his new puppy that he had with him.

Our last stop was The Bearded Dragon, Oneonta's best comic book and game store. Gaming is a subculture that I have been getting more into over the past few years. I have found myself more interested in board games and less into video games (so much so that I want to incorporate games into our Friday night meetings), therefore a stop in The Bearded Dragon is always enjoyable for me.

Here we met Will, a 21 year old young man from Oneonta who goes to school in Binghamton. He wears a cross around his neck and we could tell that he understood what our mission was about. He pointed us towards the bathroom, which was in a corner of a room full of gamers battling wits. We definitely stood out as we maneuvered our way around tables carrying buckets of cleaning supplies, and it was great to explain our AoK the gamers that were curious.

After we were finished cleaning, we hung back and talked to Will. He was appreciative of our efforts and gave us lots of insight into how to minister to Oneonta culture, like confirming to us how burnt out local people are from door-to-door evangelist. We had a great talk with our new friend about church and gaming, and I look forward to inviting him to game nights at our church and schooling him in Dominion.

Cleaning four bathrooms led to Laura and I making three new friends. As much as we both value relationships, these new friendships are totally worth a few minutes of scrubbing toilets. 15 days into 30 Days of Kindness and we have served a few hundred residents of Oneonta and made dozens of new friends. 15 more days to go and we can't wait to see who else God will place before us!

Day 14: Entertain Assisted Living Home - 30 Days of Kindness

Day 14 of 30 Days of Kindness was Entertain Assisted Living Home, and for this act of kindness our accordion playing friend Chris Lynk really got the people moving!

A blog article describing this outreach written by Oneonta's own accordion guy will be coming soon!

Day 13: Battery Giveaway - 30 Days of Kindness

Day 13 of 30 Days of Kindness was Battery Giveaway, and for this act of kindness the experience was both positive and negative (battery joke).

We have done several giveaways with our previous acts of kindness, but this was our first door-to-door giveaway. The idea here was to visit people’s home and give them a small free gift that they would find useful, and it seems like everybody uses batteries.

I loaded up a basket full of 4 different types of batteries and ventured into new territory for The Redemption Movement, Oneonta’s Center City. This neighborhood is Oneonta’s most high profile neighborhood because it lies directly between the downtown and the two colleges. It has some of the cities biggest, oldest, and most well kept homes, sitting alongside other big old houses that have been divided up into student apartments. Oneonta’s Center City is truly a neighborhood of diverse residents which is one aspect about Oneonta that drew Lauraand I to it.

Laura had to work, which meant that I was flying solo for this one. This was probably for the best since it was cold and raining. With an umbrella in one hand and a basket of batteries in the other, I set out. In the first hour I was actually met with a lot of rejection. Not so much the mean kind of rejection, but more like the kind where people tell me, “We already have enough batteries,” and then quickly shut their door.

My approach was not overbearing, I simply stated, “Hi. My name is Kaler. I am from The Redemption Movement and I am going door-to-door giving away free batteries as an act of kindness to show God’s love.” I would then hold up the basket and offer them free batteries with a smile. I was a little confused at the lack of response; could it really be every home owner is sitting on a giant stockpile of batteries?

My confusion was compounded when I had a police officer stop me because of a complaint. Seriously. Knowing the ridiculousness of the situation, I answered every one of the officer’s questions with a big smile on my face, I even offered him some batteries. I was more than happy to tell him about everything that I was doing and how much God cares for him, at least someone was willing to listen to me.

After the officer processed my identification and everything checked out, he then reported to the dispatcher in his walkie-talkie, “It’s just a guy spreading happiness and kindness, over.” He let me go and I went on my way. Why I was reported didn’t make sense to me at the time, but it did after I talked to Will from The Breaded Dragon on Thursday. Will is a 20 year old clerk at Oneonta’s favorite comic book store, after cleaning his bathroom as an AoK, Will told me how nice it is that we do this and how tired everybody in Oneonta is of religious people going door-to-door. This would explain why few people would even take the time to hear me out.

I have had religious groups visit my door carrying Bibles and passing out religious tracks. In Oneonta, when the weather is nice, especially in the summer, it seems like I see lots of teams of religious folks going door-to-door wearing suites and dresses and carrying Bibles. Everybody I talk to is sick of this approach. Herein lies the beauty this acts of kindness battery giveaway; people come to the door guarded and expecting a sermon, only to receive a free gift along with a smile and a brief statement declaring God’s love. I think if Oneonta’s home owners were not entirely burnt out from our resident door-to-door religious groups on a mission to convert, then they would be more receptive to my message. Regardless, it is my mission to reach these burnt out people and show them love in the face of suspicion, because in the end, “God is love, and love conquers all!” 

After experiencing some rejection during the first part of my mission, I realized that I needed to change my approach with door-to-door giveaways. Many home owners in this neighborhood told me, “Go give it to someone who needs it.” So I did. I headed away from the streets full of large well kept homes and into the northern part of the neighborhood where there are smaller homes and apartments.

Here I received the welcome I thought I would. People were engaging, appreciative, and they took the batteries while asking me questions about the church. I passed out kindness cards and calendars and considerably lightened my heavy basket of batteries (I did feel this AoK in my arms the next day).

I met one college-aged girl who has a heart for ministry and is going to spend her summer in Arizona helping with a church plant, she promised to pray for me. I met another girl who was a part of SUNY Oneonta’s Music Industry Club. She has heard about us from the shows that we host, and told me that she was the one that added our shows to the local newspaper events calendar, and she wants to bring disabled students that she works with to our future shows.

Being a an opportunist, I also passed out calendars to people who had children and told them about our March 22 Parent's Night Out; and if they had a dog barking at me, then I was sure to mention our March 21st dog walking service. After working mainly on the building for the past few years, it feels so nice to have events on a calendar to meet different people's needs that I can tell them about, as well as having a weekly public service that I can finally invite people to.

By the end of the night the rain had stopped, my basket of batteries was much lighter, and I got to tell 20+ people about God's love. All-in-all, meeting new people was a great way to spend an evening. We are now 13 days into this project and I am blown away with how many new people that we have got to meet and proclaim the love of God to.

Day 12: Garden Seed Giveaway - 30 Days of Kindness

Garden Seed Giveaway was Day 12 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness we literally sowed seeds of faith looking for good soil and receiving hearts in our Oneonta community.

In upstate NY, it may still be too early to plant your garden, but with the days getting longer and the snow melting quicker, Spring is on everyone's mind. To encourage people to focus on the warm weather, we thought it would be a nice gesture to pass out free packs of garden seeds.

We were able to setup on a downtown sidewalk in front of a newly remodeled mini shopping mall at Ford & Main. Thanks to a pleasant free gift wrapping acts of kindness at the same location last December, the owner of the property was happy to have us back to set up once again at his location. It was also nice to visit with the store owners on the property and watch the hustle and the bustle of city hall just accross the street. 

 

After a morning of seed shopping, Laura headed to downtown at 12 o’clock in order to reach the lunch crowd and catch the warm part of the day. By 12:30, she was setup and giving away seeds and Kaler joined in on the outreach during his lunch break. There was a lot of traffic, the sun was out, and the location was perfect!

We were impressed with the amount of young men and women interested in gardening. Some of them seemed like pretty hardcore organic types complete with dreadlocks and piercings. One girl beautifully clad in, I’m assuming, homemade knit accessories, explained to us the seriousness of politics making it difficult for small farmers to sell their produce and stay financially afloat. Another young lady was inspired by our 30 Days of Kindness and took a calendar to pass on to her yoga class. She wanted to spread the kindness and lead her class with some of our AoK projects. One young man drove by, saw the sign, yelled thank you to us out of his car window, then called his buddy telling him to stop by to get some free seeds

All-in-all, the seed giveaway was a hit. About twenty people of all ages received a packet of seeds with a kindness card and message of God’s love. We almost gave away every packet. In addition to this, we met one young man who is interested in helping and attending our church and we hope to see him again soon!

We met some nice hippies. We met people serious about visiting our church. We met families with children. We met one religious guy who did not like the idea of a new church in Oneonta and wasn't afraid to tell us, followed by another religious person who donated $40 for us to keep up the good work (which more than enough to cover the giveaway!). Every time we do an act of kindness, we never know who we are going to meet, which makes it an adventure! AoK = Adventures of Kindness!  

Check out our 30 Days of Kindness calendar and contact us to join us our next kindness adventure.

Day 11: Free Haircuts - 30 Days of Kindness

Free Hair Cuts was Day 11 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness we got to turn the ol' storefront into a barbershop!  

It was a beautiful March day, and it was one of the first time in many months we saw the sun, felt its warmth, and opened our windows. We don’t get too many sunny days in Oneonta, therefore, whenever the sun comes out, it seems like everyone is out and about. Joggers, walkers, bikers, and dog owners streamed across the sidewalk in front of our building. The smell of neighborhood bar-b-que was in the air. We were setup with the doors open, letting the sun and air come inside where our friend Max was volunteering his barber skills.

There was a steady stream of customers during our three hours of offering free haircuts. Max did a great job and everyone looked fantastic after a trim. We had a few older gentlemen and there were several children. One family of five hit the breaks when they saw our “Free Haircuts” sign by the road. The mother told us she saw the sign and thought, “Oh, we have to do this!” It was great to help a family where buying everyone a haircut means spending an easy $100. It was nice to bless this family, and it was also great telling them about our upcoming Parent's Night Out where we babysit and the parents get a free dinner at Joe Ruffino's (you can tell by the look on their face that it has been awhile since their last date night). 

 
It was a treat to play with the kids as they waited, and it was encouraging to see the old building come alive with families and children. Kaler, who is keenly aware of a child’s need to play, rummaged through our stuff and found a somewhat deflated ball and some chalk. (We’re going to have to stock up on better supplies for kids.) The beautiful thing about kids is that, even though our toys were not so hot, they still had a blast. They smiled, laughed, and jumped around, enjoying every moment. They tossed a ball around, climbed the poles under our awning, and made chalk drawings on the sidewalk.

 It was a good day for socializing. Several friends stopped by to visit. We got to meet a local pastor’s wife who dropped in to see what was going on. Little did we know that she and her husband were living in the neighborhood all this time. We love doing these events as an excuse to finally meet the people in our neighborhood. Our church is in a high density neighborhood and I often long to get to know the people beyond our door step.

Thanks again to our friend Max and his family for participating in this AoK with us. We couldn’t have done it without them, and if we had, then we would have had to cut hair, and there would be a lot of people around town with bad haircuts!

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

Day 10: Free Oil Change - 30 Days of Kindness

Free Oil Change was Day 10 of 30 Days of Kindness, and for this act of kindness we got together with friends, looked under some hoods, kicked some tires, and worked with wrenches on a sunny March day. It was good day to change some oil.

This was an event that I really looked forward to, it was our most expensive 30 Days of Kindness project that I had planned. This was not my first oil change rodeo, I interned at a church in Missouri that hosted a free oil change for single moms, I remember seeing a lot people blessed by that event and I wanted to bring this to Oneonta and bless not just single moms, but everybody in the community!

My expectations were high. Who wouldn't want a free oil change? I had 2 cases of oil and dozen 5qt. jugs ready to go. I also had a table full of tools and our meeting room cleaned up and loaded with snacks. The kindness calendar was mentioned in the newspaper, advertised on Facebook, flyers were hung up in storefronts, signs were made and displayed, and I even passed out over 100 calendars, being sure to point out the big oil change event. Expecting there to be a line of cars, I even put extra time into recruiting volunteers and had 8 helpers standing by--not bad for a church of 4 people!

We had 2 cars show up to take advantage of the Free Oil Change. Yep, two. I don't get it. It's a need that is relevant to every driver, and it will cost a person at least $35 to have their oil changed at the shop. Part of me thinks that if I sat out front all day with a sign that said "Free $20 Bill." I would maybe have 2 people take me up on my offer.

Perhaps this act of kindness was too big, too generous, and such a foreign idea to Northeasterners that nobody thought that our offer was serious. I should not be surprised by this, after all, people turn down the free gift of God's big love everyday. Now granted, a generous oil change is not on the same level as God's gift of salvation, but I did notice one similarity, and that is, when I invited people to the Free Oil Change, I had many people straight up tell me, "I would feel too guilty to accept that."

How many people miss out on God's love simply because they don't feel like they deserve it? Meanwhile, God is pursuing after lost souls with the tenacity of a good shepard searching for his lost sheep, or a poor widow turning her house upside down looking for her lost coin. I was pretty close myself to dressing up in a costume and dancing around with a sign to get people to pull in, that is how badly I wanted to share God's love with this outreach.

I may not fully understand why more people didn't show up, but we gained some valuable insight into reaching out to our local community, and you can bet that we will try it again, except, for this next time we will buy less oil. I don't believe the event was a failure, I got to return the extra oil and use the extra food for the Free Haircut outreach that we had the next day, and we were still able to bless several people.

The biggest blessing came from our team of volunteers. A few of the helpers pulled up their own cars and we changed each others oil. There was one young adult helper who had never changed his own oil before, the men helping were quick to teach him this life skill and walk him through the steps as he changed his own oil for the first time in his own car, all while his girlfriend visiting from out-of-town proudly watched.

I also got to change the oil for a neighbor who lives a couple of houses down. This is someone that I have seen walk by my house for 3 years but I've been unable to have a descent conversation with until now. And there was another neighbor who blessed me by using his snow blower to clear the snow off my driveway while I was getting set up. Everybody that volunteered seemed to enjoy themselves, and there is a valuable male bonding experience that happens when you get enough dudes holding wrenches.
 
We still have 20 acts of kindness left to go, and if I could get on a megaphone and say anything to Oneonta NY, my message would be, "Oneonta, we are doing this for you! This is a free gift. We love you. God loves you. You deserve these gifts! Don't believe any lie that would try and convince you otherwise."