There have been a lot of stories of kindness and positive actions taken during the pandemic, from the amazing Captain Sir Tom Moore to children baking cookies for their neighbours. It makes you realise that there are some amazing kind souls in the world, and that we all have the capacity to be like that.
Acts of Random Kindness
I’m celebrating those people weekly in my Kindness Book Club on Facebook. If you know someone who has shown kindness, pop over to tell me about him/her. Once a month, I’ll return the kindness with a gift to one person mentioned during the month.
Kindness in Action
If you didn’t know me last summer, you may not know of my fundraising campaign for UK Zoos. It was my act of kindness to help zoos when they were unable to open. Along with many Olympic, Paralympic and World Champion athletes, and lots of generous donors, we raised over £700 which has been shared between Belfast Zoo, Chester Zoo, Colchester Zoo, Edinburgh Zoo, Twycross Zoo, Paignton Zoo, The Welsh Mountain Zoo, London Zoo and Paradise Wildlife Park.
Animals in Action
It all began when my daughter told me that sloths were good swimmers. We love nothing more than a chat about nonsense, so of course that comment led on to a discussion about which animals would be good at which sports. I couldn’t sleep that night with golfing ostriches, trampolining moles and hurdling gazelles trampling through my mind! All of this was at the start of lockdown1 in the UK, and shortly after the Olympics and Paralympics was cancelled. I knew it was time for the animal kingdom to step up and compete instead.
It started out as a bit of fun but by the end I had written a poem of 55 verses covering all the Olympic sporting events with 63 animals competing or working to make the Games happen. It was then that I decided to put the poem to good use and stepped way beyond my comfort zone, I reached out to sports people to ask if they would read their sport’s verse. The response was amazing! Check out all the photos below. I am very grateful for the support I received from sports people, Adam Hills (comedian and presenter) and everyone who donated.
What’s Next?
It doesn’t stop there though. I’m planning to turn the poem into a picture book with a kickstarter (or similar) campaign. I’ll update you when there is more news on that.
The picture book will continue to help zoos with a percentage of profit being donated to zoos.
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