Stories of Kindness from Around the World

Reflecting on a Kindspring post about what one person can do,  I thought I’d share my recent exploits. I won a Peace Pole at the end of Spring, in a competition by the Love Foundation and we then went on to plant it in the village with the help of all the schoolchildren?

Well, moving on from that at the beginning of Summer, I decided to launch a Biodiversity Ambassadors group in my workplace. Well, the whole thing has taken off incredibly and we’re now onto our 5th meet up, having now had 63 people sign up, and I’m sure that more will sign up throughout the year and into the winter.

We also went on a trip to look at bumblebees with a lady from the Bumblebee Conservation, a talk about a school where the children breed and release butterflies, a pond visit with a lady from the British Dragonfly society and our planned events include a bat walk, an orchard day and a moths at breakfast morning.

We are already planning a tree planting morning to coincide with National Tree planting week, we’re unsure whether to plant 100 or 1000 trees, may be a bit ambitious, and making and giving away Hedgehog Hibernation Houses!

Some projects which are starting to come together, just by our networking with one another are a planned pollinators garden in a local sheltered housing complex, a Greener Graveyards initiative, a wildflower verge and a biodiversity garden. Nearly forgot that there’s a lady who is putting plans together for a wildflower garden at a children’s nursery.

It’s not to say that there’s not been some stumbling blocks, such as no money for trees, no timber for hedgehog houses, but we’re moving forward nevertheless and hopeful that something will turn up as we go along!

But there’s one project more. Emma and I went to the same talk given by Compassionate Inverclyde where a group of volunteers prepare and give away ‘back to home’ boxes for people who are leaving hospital and going back to an empty home. The boxes include things like tea, bread, fresh milk, a hand written card by schoolchildren.

Afterwards, and after joining the Biodiversity Ambassadors, Emma thought of what she could do in her town as she’s involved in a project supporting people to feel connected with their community and came up with the idea of giving away ‘bee bombs’ which gets people thinking about their place of home and environment. It’s a little bag of local wildflower seeds, a local social enterprise will oversee the project and a community farm will make the bee bombs themselves.

Now, I’m just one person with an idea, and yet 3 months on and we’re 63 people with ideas buzzing! And I’m just a channel, just the one in the right place with the willing heart and the idea at just the right time. But how blessed do I feel? David Bowie said “We could be heroes, just for one day” and do you know how true that is? With just a bit of courage, we could each of us all be heroes. (Thanks Rajni!)