THE LADY THAT TURNED TRAGEDY INTO AN OPPORTUNITY TO SPREAD HAPPINESS

    THE LADY THAT TURNED TRAGEDY INTO AN OPPORTUNITY TO SPREAD 
                                                      HAPPINESS                                                                        

She turned tragedy into an opportunity to spread happiness.When 18 year old Samantha Mann lost her beloved great-grandmother to a heart-attack, she thought she would never recover from the loss. Depressed, she started looking for ways to overcome her grief and also honor great-grandmother Virginia 'Jinjey' Booth's memory. Suddenly she hit upon an idea. "She lived to be 89 years old. Some of her last words before she died were, "I don't want anyone to be upset.'I thought to myself, "Ok, well I am going to be upset, but I've heard that if you do nice things for others, you can in turn make yourself happy." So that's just what I did! I decided to do 89 random acts of kindness to honor each one of the years she spent with us,' recalls a much happier Samantha.Today '89 acts of kindness' has allowed Samantha to honor Grandmother Booth in a way that has not only helped her get over her own personal loss but has helped her touch other lives through these positive acts. As Samantha puts it, "it is simply about spreading a smile in her grandma's memory."Her modus operandi is simple; they are not fund raisers or schools and shelters; it is about incorporating simple acts of kindness in her everyday life."Some of the activities I've carried out include paying for the people behind me at a drive through, going to an arcade and giving all of my tickets to a little kid, filling up a gas tank for someone else, driving a sick friend to the emergency room, playing with the animals at shelters, and making donations to those shelters" says Samantha with a childlike smile.She has also been very careful about not patronizing anyone when performing her good deed. 'My favorite act to date has to be one at a gas station. I went inside just to get some water, and noticed a very petite woman was walking in behind me carrying her son, who looked to be maybe three years old or so. They went to the refrigerator section and got some milk. The boy timidly asked for a pack of M&M's by then, they got out of line in front of me and went to get the candy. By the time the woman got back in line behind me, I was already up at the counter. I turned to her and said, "You can put your milk up on the counter if you want." She thanked me and I continued, "And your M&M's. I'm going to pay for it." She almost started crying! She was so thankful, and so happy. She told me, "This is probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me." It made me feel so good, to brighten up her day like that!' recalls Samantha.Samantha has also cleverly leveraged social media platforms to popularize her concept of spreading joy through random acts of kindness. Hoping to infect others with her enthusiasm for giving, she plans to live stream one of her acts on Facebook. "This Saturday I will be going to a local shopping center and giving out 89 red roses to people who look like they need a smile. I was inspired for that by a picture that I saw circulating around the internet. During this time, I will be live-streaming the video footage of giving the roses away to the Facebook page, and also accepting donations for my friend's mom, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer" adds Samantha.One of her posts on facebook reads, 'When I was a child and would see scary things in the news, my mother would say 'look for people who are helping'. To this day, especially is trying times, I remember my mother's words and am comforted with the fact that there are still so many helpers, that there's still so much hope.' Through '89 random acts of kindness' Samantha hopes to create more helpers.Here is a great example. Learn from it.