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 
Have never seen a better reason to comment on anything!
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Never!
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Ever!
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A new mom, I was on a crowded bus in San Francisco with my 6 month old son who all of a sudden started throwing up. Startled, I didn’t quite know what to do. But then, a complete stranger sitting beside me helped wipe down the gross mess trickling down my shoulders, my clothes, on my baby, on the seat. It was one of the most unexpected, selfless and kindest thing someone did for me.
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Okay one more nice thing – when life did turn difficult (crappy) and I had to move back to California (with no where to go) my old boss did not hesitate to move mountains to get me hired to work for him again (against economic and company obstacles) I am forever grateful to that man.
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Anyone anywhere who has given me honest words of encouragement when I’ve been having a rough day. Those words have given me an extra boost when I’ve needed it most.
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The nicest thing is pretty rough to pick, but my husband surprised me with a proposal in the sweetest and nicest possible way. I guess many women think that … 🙂
Thanks for being super nice and participating and for permitting us to join along!
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This is so awesome! Go Maggie! Go vaccinations!
The nicest thing folks have ever done for me – my coworkers who pooled enough money to cover my flight home, out of country, when my mother unexpectedly died. I still can’t quite believe they did that for me. I could’ve covered it myself, I am good with my money, but they wanted to do something for me, and the reminder of that generosity still moves me to tears, over a decade afterwards.
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nice!
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Yes to vaccines! They do provide such life saving prevention, and everyone should have the chance to vaccinate their kids.
I have a friend who had polio as a kid and the reason he’s still able to walk is because he had been partially vaccinated when he contracted it. So yes to vaccines!
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I don’t know the nicest thing anyone has done for me; I am lucky enough to have a lot of choices. A dear friend showed up for a week about a month after our baby came home. She cooked, held the baby, made sure we were okay, and just helped. It was incredibly sweet.
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The first one that came to mind was an experience at a French Consulate. I was already in Europe when the law changed to require a visa to visit France (it’s since changed back, don’t worry), and I had plans to go with my parents to France for their first and only trip to Europe. In the meantime being the klutz I am I’d dropped my passport in the rain. It was bent and had ink stains so that it was partially illegible, and could easily have been mistaken for a forgery. I had only one day to get a visa, and got up at 4:00 AM to take a train two hours away to wait in line for the consulate to open. At about lunch time I finally got up to the counter, and they immediately refused to give me a visa. No way, not gonna happen on a damaged passport. I was exhausted, and stressed about my parents’ trip being ruined, and frustrated with myself for damaging my passport, and trying to communicate in a language I don’t speak. I backed away from the counter, turned around, and burst out sobbing. After a couple of seconds I realized people around me were laughing. I looked up to glare at whoever could be so unfeeling, and realized they weren’t being mean. They were laughing at the passport official whose bureaucratic reserve broke down when he saw me cry and was trying frantically to wave me back over. He quickly stamped a visa in my passport and then shooed me away, saying as best I could tell “you got that before the damage, remember!” Thanks to that one man’s decision to bend the rules I was able to have an amazing experience traveling with my dad, who was diagnosed the following year with the brain tumor that eventually killed him. I will always be grateful.
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I was obviously not terribly qualified, but I was enthusiastic, and she gave me a shot. (Obviously, I totally succeeded!)
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Those kids are so cute!
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Too many things to name.
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I was 17, alone, and, having just given birth to my son, scared shitless in a world full of judgment. A teacher from the high school I had recently graduated sent flowers and balloons to commemorate his birth.
I still get teary thinking about her kindness.
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It’s the simple gestures that mean so much. Recently a friend clipped fresh flowers from her garden, put them in a vase, and left it on my doorstep with a note saying, Just because…I was so touched. It was so unexpected and thoughtful and lifted me up when I needed it most.
This is such a great cause…proud to be a small part of it.
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The nicest thing anyone ever did for me is having a stranger help me in a parking lot when I was having a medical issue.
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The nicest thing someone has done for me would be my aunt and uncle, who let me live with them, rent free, for 3 years. They took me in after a really stressful time and their own request was that I stay in school. I graduate college with honors, and I know I wouldn’t have been able to stay so focused without their support. they gave me a great environment to live in … how could I not succeed? I am so grateful to them.
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This is awesome!
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Vaccines themselves can be the nicest things.
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Maggie, you’re mighty inspiring. Thank you for reminding me to reach higher.
Some of the nicest things people have ever given me have come in the form of hugs when I REALLY needed one.
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I was 19 and taking an overnight bus from Colorado to Montana for a family wedding. At about 2am, we stopped in Cheyenne, WY for a brief break.
While there, we found a busload of people whose bus had broken down. The bus driver told us that the first people back on the bus could ride; the others would have to wait until the morning at the small bus station.
I was nervous and a bit submissive, but a grandmother with her four-year-old grandson grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the bus with them. I think she said, “Uh-uh. You’re not staying here.”
It was a small gesture, but I’ll never forget her kindness.
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I think it’s pretty darn nice – fantastic really – that just by writing a comment we can do some good in the world. It’s really nice to be a part of this endeavour!
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What a fab idea! Good on you for making it happen! Also, those two kids are darling… Gorgeous photo.
The nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.. was move mountains and pull every string possible to create a scholarship for me to have the chance to get my degree. I’ve never been so shocked and grateful to have someone believe in me that much.. And it’s changed my life! If I’m ever in a position where I can make that happen for someone, I’ll think of him and do anything in my power.
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This is so wonderful. One of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me, was to throw me a surprise bridal shower. We had a smaller wedding planned, with a diverse group of people. I could not be more honored that they all came together for a terrifically fun afternoon!
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Nicest thing? Quietly, calmly, lovingly pushing me to see that my life is worth living, and worth living well.
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While visiting my best friend at grad school I came down with a truly appalling case of food poisoning that lasted a couple of days. She and her husband waited on me hand and foot, tucked me into their bed, kept me hydrated, climbed in next to me to show me YouTube videos when I was well enough to focus my eyes on anything. You know your friend has found a good man when that man kneels next to you on the floor (because prostrate on the floor is the only place you can manage to exist at the moment) and offers to download an audiobook for you to listen to while you lie there as long as you need to.
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A good friend once sat across from me while I cried into my noodles in a foreign land and acted like it was the most natural thing in the world. No judgement, just acceptance of my sorrow and the time we were spending together.
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A few weeks ago I was in a funk, nothing serious, just feeling a little overwhelmed and a little blue. In the midst of said funk, I had a long chat with my best friend and college roommate who, sadly, lives on the other side of the country. By way of example of the extremely pitiful state of my mood, I told her about my terrible, cheap, no-good blender and how it is such a piece of shit that I end up having to stop every ten seconds, open the thing up, and stick a knife under the blades to get it moving. I told her that this particular frustration has driven me to tears on more than one occasion as I tried to make my daily smoothie.
It was probably a two minute anecdote among many whiny moments in that conversation. Three days later, the UPS man handed me a brand new blender. The note with it just said, “Hang in there, and have a tear-free morning on me. Love you, Lauren.”
I never would have thought that a blender could make me feel so loved. Nicest thing ever.
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not the nicest thing (that might be to all of my friends who let me natter at them on a daily basis), but a nice thing; during college, a friend bought for me a dress that i wanted badly but wouldn’t buy for myself. i still wear it at least every 4th time i need to dress up (albeit, not a very frequent occurrence).
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And one more; right before i moved across the country for grad school, one of my favorite professors gave me the kitchen table she and her husband had just replaced. It was the one that her mom purchased for her right before she herself moved across the country to start grad school.
Unexpected and so touching.
Woo, vaccines!
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A good friend and someone I’d worked with hired me to freelance for her company after I lost my job. It was a lifeline I needed both emotionally and financially and I will be ever grateful to her.
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Way to go cousin! Proud of you and the impact you are making! Love ya
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It’s hard to choose just one thing! However, I want to honor my friend Nicole, who has been my biggest cheerleader through both of my adoptions, and who made an entire wardrobe for my baby, who can’t wear a lot of off-the-rack stuff due to a birth defect. Nicole is one of the busiest people on the planet, but she got excited about Elvie coming and just went to town making dresses and skirts and altering onesies for me. Every time I dress my baby, I am reminded how much love there is for my baby and for me as a mom.
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What a great cause! When I taught second grade in a very poor urban area, my students and their families would bring me presents from time to time. Whether it was homemade tamales, or a ratty stuffed animal that had seen a long past, the generosity that they showed me, when I knew that they had very little material wealth, was staggering.
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A random stranger handed my her umbrella, in the raini. I was carrying a ton of stuff, and she simple said “here take this, I can share with my friend.” I then carried that umbrella with me until I could pay it forward to someone else in need, in the rain!
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Wait! I don’t have to choose one thing! How silly of me! (That was my sleep-deprived mom brain talking in that last comment.) The second thing is also adoption-related. Elvie’s adoption happened super fast, and we really had to scramble to come up with funds to pay both fees and travel expenses. Near the end, I was waking up nauseated in the middle of the night because I was so worried about paying for everything, and the one thing that remained to be covered was our hotel costs. A friend stepped forward and gave enough to pay for the entire two weeks’ stay in Addis Ababa as a gift to our family. She gave us the gift of lodging, but gave me personally the gift of sleeping without extreme discomfort.
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The nicest thing anyone has ever done for me was done indirectly. When I was almost 3yrs old, my mother’s friend gave my mom a plane ticket she had won. That ticket got my mother and I from our war torn El Salvador to Mexico where we met up with people who led us into the United States. Here is where we made our home and received a chance at a better life. My mom is my hero but her friend is the reason I am here today as a legal resident holding 2 degrees and 3 professional licenses.
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Two things come to mind:
I am blessed to have two best friends who have guest rooms available whenever I need to just feel loved.
When I seperated from my ex-husband a small band of friends and co-workers came to help move me out into my sister’s basement. The fact that they would all come with such short notice to help was overwhelming. The fact that my sister let me rent her basement for several months let me find myself again.
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The nicest thing someone did for me when I was on my big biketour the last two weeks, was to carry my bike up the long staircase at the train station without even having ask for it.
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On my birthday a few weeks ago my friends were amazing and created a big picture with photos of them and a big 30 in every one of it. Love this picture and definitely one of the nicest things anyone did for me! 🙂
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Too many nice things have been done for me to possibly count (and it’s hard to currently recall the nicest), but most have been done by my incredibly loving, generous and unselfish parents. I have a distinct memory of my dad staying up late one night, likely exhausted from a full day of work, when I was in elementary school to whittle away in the basement on a silly scarecrow I needed for the next day’s class Halloween party. Even at that age, I was cognizant of the sacrifice and love that went into that simple act. (A close second, my brother flew home cross-country to surprise me for my 30th birthday. I was stunned and thrilled:))
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Anyone in recovery will understand this–the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me is to be brave enough to get sober and then stick around to be there for me…and I have done the same…that’s how it works.
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The nicest thing someone has ever done for me is look after me.
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The nicest thing anyone has ever done for me is take care of me when I needed it without looking down on me.
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The nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me is accepting me for who I am, warts and all. Random nice thing a stranger did years ago that just popped into my head: A guy walked up to me after I’d left a store, gave me a single red rose, said “I just wanted to buy this for you because I think you’re beautiful” and left again.
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This is such a great cause. This is the nicest thing anyone could ever do!
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The nicest thing: my boyfriend got excited about a dream that was mine. So much so, he joined in. On Saturday we get the keys for our summer cottage in Sweden. It’s only been 14 years I have been wanting to do it.
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One of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me was my partner getting up 2 hours early every morning for months so he could catch the same train as me to help me transition from working at home (i.e. pjs at 3pm) to commuting to a new, distant, corporate job. With a packed breakfast. And he never really said a word about it- just reset his alarm and came along. I think the nicest things are often those done without fanfare. Just love.
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