This post is inspired by Shot@Life, an initiative of the United Nations Foundation dedicated to using vaccines as a cost-effective way to save children’s lives in developing countries. (Image courtesy United Nations Foundation.)
Hi team, I need help. Here’s why:
For every comment on this post, Shot@Life gets $20 to vaccinate a kid.
Twenty. Dollars.
Twenty dollars is what it costs to give one child four vaccines that help protect them against measles, pneumonia, diarrhea, and polio. During Shot@Life’s Blogust: Blog Relay for Good, 31 bloggers have been helping to secure $200,000 in sponsor donations. We need 10,000 comments, and we’re about 1,000 away from that goal right now.
Over the years, your comments have shaped my life. Whether you were celebrating Hank’s birth with me, or cheering my Life List, or comforting me when things took a difficult turn. I know you guys care about helping other people because of how much help you’ve already heaped on me.
So let’s do this.
Can you comment twice? Yes. Yes you can. And if you have a means of spreading the word, please Tweet, Pin, link on Facebook, or post a quick link on your own site.
Let us know the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you in comments. And thanks to you for being so nice to other people. I like you.
Yesterday Fadra Nally of All Things Fadra wrote about the comments you never see. Tomorrow, I’m passing the baton to my friend Stacey Ferguson of Justice Fergie — so you can help us reach our final goal by commenting on her site as well. We have until August 31. Thanks again.
Mighty Girl 
The nicest thing anyone has ever done for me was to be honest with me through the most difficult experience of my life – honest advice and honest opinion about what I had done – which enabled me to get real and face the situation and take action to move forward. It literally meant my life.
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The nicest thing ever done for me? My stay-at-home-dad/husband makes my day daily!! Oh, let me count the ways…he makes the bed so I feel civilized when I lie down in the evenings, he does the laundry so I don’t have food on the shoulder of every piece of clothes I own, he cleans off the kitchen island which maintains my sanity, he even cleans bathrooms on occasion.
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My best friend has bought me a ticket to fly to Anchorage, & drive & camp down the Canadian coast with her. I leave next week!
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When traveling with my wheelchair bound Grandmother in Spain, we took the Metro a lot… but there were almost no elevators. So I, at age 11, had to take her wheelchair up and down flights of stairs to get to the stations. A ton of kind strangers helped me with carrying it, and it really helped brighten my days.
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The nicest thing/surprise was when I won a cruise on the QEII in 7th grade. First vacation I remember my mother ever taking.
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When I try to come up with one big thing someone has done for me, I end up contemplating the million small and amazing things I’m the recipient of nearly every day. Friends’ snail mail letters, my child’s smooches, work colleagues and mentors who give you great advice. It’s all the lovely minutia that makes me grateful.
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nicest thing? i couldn’t narrow it down enough, but i am lucky to have many wonderfully nice people in my life. nice things happen daily, and that’s pretty nice in itself.
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When I was going through a particulary hard time when my dad was dying, my freinds would send me hand written cards telling me how much they love me, so that I would have kind and loving thoughts when I would get home. Their kindness fills my heart every time I think about it.
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Lots of things. But one that comes up (for good reason) is that my fiance is building me a house.
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This is a tough question… I’m remembering so many nice things people have done, but I having a hard time choosing one as the nicest. It always seems like the small gracious gestures are the ones that are the most surprising and best.
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To make a very long story short, someone (who is now a dear friend of mine) recommended me to teach a class through the park & rec. I was a very unlikely candidate as I was very shy and awkward. Through the teaching gig I have gained self confidence and self esteem that I never had before. Now these years later I am a better person and have a better job than I would have if I had never started teaching. She changed my life with that recommendation!
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After leaving an extremely stressful and unfulfilling career, my boyfriend is supporting me while I figure out what I want to do with my life. No pressure, no guilt, just…letting me figure it out. I’m grateful every single day for this.
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I’m in! Count my comment for a good cause!
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Hard to choose the nicest thing any of my family and friends have done – but on a slightly different note, travel has really affirmed my faith in the niceness of strangers. So many people have helped me out along the way: top of the list is the Lufthansa gate agent at Munich who was super sweet to me after a hellish journey. She went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure that I – and more importantly my 1 year old nephew – were looked after.
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Also, I am going through a tough break up, and my friends text every day to tell me how strong I am and how I deserve better. Even thugh I already know it, it means the world that they think it too.
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Hmm. I am hard pressed to decide on the nicest thing anyone has ever done fir me, so I’ll go with a nice thing someone did and didn’t realize: when I was going through a hard time in life, I often stopped on the way home from work to see my middle nephew, who my folks babysat once a week. Every time I stopped by, he would see me and run towards me full tilt for a hug. It’s no wonder he’s my favorite.
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It’s hard to come up with the nicest thing ever. How about the nicest thing today? My manager gave me a day off next week, for free.
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What a wonderful and simple way to fund raise. I’m more than happy to help. Great cause!
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The nicest thing someone has done for me recently (ever is just too hard to decide) is spend lots of time listening and reflecting with me as I sorted out a difficult situation. Friends are so good.
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My little girl telling i am beautiful is enough for me – kindness from babes 🙂
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The nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me is a bit too personal for public consumption. But! This year I met the nicest friend ever, so just having her in my life is probably one of the nicest things anyone has done for me. (Yay vaccines for kids!)
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My girlfriend did all the dishes last night after I made dinner – it was really nice.
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One of the nicest things I remember was how my sister came to visit me when I was terribly depressed. She made sure I ate and we watched lots of light-hearted movies. It helped.
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There have been so many great kindnesses done to me, that I don’t know if I can pick just one. But for now, the best thing that someone most recently did for me was reflect to me how important my dad was to me. She told me that she knew because of how I spoke of him and the little things I’d told her over the last few years that I’ve known her. Hearing from someone else that they knew he was my friend and not just my dad means the world to me and I know it would mean the world to him to. That was an amazing kindness that I doubt she even knew she gave me.
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I love reading about all the nice things done for and done by everyone above.
I can’t think of one outstanding nice thing – but thinking in general about how family and friends came to help with time, meals, supplies once our baby was born, made me feel so loved and less overwhelmed about the new experience of being a mom.
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Not the nicest thing, ever, but the nicest thing recently comes to mind: my mom is being treated for ovarian cancer (and kicking its ass!!!!) and my boss’s wife made my mom a lovely quilt. And one for me. And one for my sister! I was overwhelmed.
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Teachers helping me to believe in myself when I was young.
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My mother-in-law took the kids so I could sleep in. And there was coffee made for me when I woke up.
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My friends did my dishes for me when I was very depressed and couldn’t face them.
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Being told that I’m more than I think I am from a true-blue friend. Again and again.
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Nice things happen to me all the time, I’m very blessed. I am lucky to have great friends and a solid family. The best thing that ever happened to me was my son, He is now 18, graduated from high school and about to start University, and very nice. My amazing stepsister is how I came to this blog, and definitely among the nicest things to ever happen to me, thank you Rhiannon for being an amazing person and sister. Hugs and smiles go along way and are so very nice.
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Its such a long list, but one of the nicest things someone has ever done for me was introduce me to my boyfriend. She had a hunch we’d be great together and she was SO right. We’ve been together for an amazing three years and he the love of my life.
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My mom constantly does nice things for me. She recently sent me a diaper bag and sewed me the perfect crib skirt. I’m a lucky lady to have such a wonderful mother.
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The nicest thing I ever received was the gift of life.
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The un-nicest thing a commenter said? That I looked like John Malkovich.
The nicest is when I write about having a tough working mom day, terrible mother guilt, you name it, and my commenters are wiser than me and say, “this too shall pass.”
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When I was 19, my best friend passed away. My mom had just started working at a new school (she’s an elementary school teacher). All of her coworkers heard the news, and they brought me dinner over the next few weeks. I was brought homemade soups, biscuits, and yummy desserts by people I had never met in person. It was one of the darkest times in my life, and I’ve never felt so loved or so cared for. Six years later, and I still tear up thinking about their kindness.
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Every time my exhausted husband gets up with one of our kids so that I can sleep…best gift ever.
And this is the nicest blog post ever. Yay you! Way to flex those mighty muscles for good. You rock.
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I’ve had so much good in my life it’s too hard to pick the nicest! Yesterday two of my good friends helped me move things into my new apartment. It was wonderful that they graciously offered to help, followed through and did not complain about the broken AC. The best part of all was their enthusiasm and encouragement for my new place! Moving sucks but great friend make it so much better!!
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24 hours after giving birth to my first child and eight hours after her hungry screams began, I went to a la leche league meeting for help to get her to latch. The entire group stopped what they were planning and instead helped me get Ella to eat. They rubbed my shoulders while I sobbed – more sleep deprived and physically exhausted than I have been ever. I’d forgotten a diaper bag, can’t even imagine what I looked like and was more vulnerable than I can recall being.
I remember leaving that meeting thinking that sometimes just when you need it, the universe sends you the people you need to get through the hardest trials.
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I just love this!
I have a really hard time thinking of the nicest thing, but here are some nice things…
this week: my boyfriend came to bring me lunch today on his midweek holiday. wawhoo.
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It’d be hard to pick the nicest thing anyone’s ever done, since there are so many nice things that people do for me each day. But the one that stands out the most happened a few years ago, when my husband and I were moving out of our San Francisco apartment. During all the craziness the morning of the move, hubs accidentally left my brand new macbook on the sidewalk next to the car (instead of putting it *in* the car, as he meant to). By the time we realized it was gone it was hours later and we had already unpacked all our stuff in the new place. We were both totally panicked and freaking out when, moments later, he got a phone call from a Muni driver who had seen the laptop while on her early morning bus route. Since this was literally a brand new laptop, there was only one document on it – which happened to be el hubbo’s resume. She called the number listed, and we got the laptop back! Amazing. We tried to give her money but she wasn’t interested. There are really some awesome people in this world.
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….
and longer ago…
in college my very generous best friend once bought all my books for me when I didn’t have the money before classes started
and the same wonderful person helped me get a plane ticket for my 11 year old (at the time) bitty sister to come visit for little sibs weekend.
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Another comment and another vaccination! And another nice thing: as a young dumb kid I rear ended a guy’s car and he let me off the hook. I did the same for a young girl last year and it felt great 🙂
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My husband helped me peel and chop apples this morning so I could make a batch of gluten free muffins. He’s pretty nice.
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My friend brought my family snacks and lunch, and looked after my (and her) kids in my home when I had pneumonia last week. Love.
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Thanks for supporting Shot@Life! I used to be a social worker and had an HIV positive kiddo on my caseload who couldn’t be immunized for many things we take for granted. one of the nicest things: the first thing that comes to mind is the many friends who came to my aid when I was on bed rest and subsequently had a c-section and appendectomy. I try to pay that forward as often as I can!
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Picking the nicest thing ever is too hard, so I’m going to share a quick and nice story. When I lived in Seoul, South Korea, I would go to a little mart around the corner to get groceries. One day, when I was paying, one of my ID cards and a metro card fell out of my wallet, and I didn’t notice. Two to three weeks passed, and I figured I had lost them. Then, one day, I walked into the mart, and the lady working behind the counter handed me my lost cards. She could have thrown them away, but she waited until she saw me again. So nice!
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Impossible to pick! KIndnesses small and large should be the predominant texture in all of our lives!
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After a very rough breakup with my high school/college boyfriend, a guy I knew took me out on a date. I had been so devastated by the breakup it helped me to see that he was just one person and I would have a bigger, and even better life ahead.
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My three-year-old son will say, “I like you, Mommy.”
I’m 100% certain that I like him, too. My six-year-old daughter likes to draw me pictures all the time. They make me feel pretty darn special.
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