Earlier in the year, after Nipun's talk at Christ College in Bangalore, one of the Deans treated our whole gang to lunch. While we spent an hour dining, two beautiful souls were waiting outside for us the entire time. They had been following ServiceSpace for a while, and just wanted to meet and express their gratitude. Nivendra and Chandni were their names.

Since then, Chandni has stayed connected and has truly emerged as a service rockstar, always ready to make someone's day. A few of us from the Moved by Love family had attended an "unConference" in Pune, where we facilitated circles on silence, kindness, gratitude and gifting. Chandni set up a stall named "Giftivism" with books, cards, cd's and dvd's, organic goodies, wisdom craft stuff, etc and invited the gathered participants to partake of the love offerings.

She noticed something amazing happening. People who had visited the stall, and taken something, would come back later and contribute gifts for the others. The table started overflowing as more and more folks chose to come and contribute in an ever growing chain of generosity. Some people also requested us to act as their "Secret Santa" to anonymously tag their friends and family who were present at the event.

Inspired by the gift of a book he received, one young boy got so charged that he picked up a chart, scribbled "Free Hugs" and walked around giving hugs to anyone who was willing to receive. Another young girl tore up chits from her diary and invited visitors to write their favorite quotes which would then be tagged to unsuspecting folks.

All in all, it was a great experience to see the ripples of smiles spreading, one grateful soul at a time!

And just yesterday, Chandni wrote in with another heart-warming act from Dubai. She recently got together with a few of her friends for a random acts of kindness event at a local flea market. They started out by collecting things from their homes, from neighbors and friends which could make good gifts. Then they set up an artistic stall to display the goodies and invited visitors to browse and take whatever they liked. Imagine the delight of these girls who received a gift when they happened to pass by this stall!



They had also set up a board with the question "What are you grateful for?" to which the visitors posted their heartfelt responses on post it notes. Below is a picture of the board, to give you an idea of how well received it was!

It is so beautiful to see such seeds of joy, generosity, kindness and gratitude being lovingly planted by our young service rockstars.

 

Posted by Sheetal Sanghvi on Sep 23, 2013 | permalink