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 
Yes indeed.
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What you’re doing here is pretty nice!
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I love this!
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nice things that happened today: my colleagues are funny. always.
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My BFF took me in during a time in my life when I was deeply lost and desperately needing some help and love. I will always be grateful for her kindness.
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Maybe not the nicest thing ever but something that sticks with me over and over again is that my parents offer to take care of my dogs whenever we are out of town. My two large dogs are a pain in the ass in general and my parents come over every day (they live a half hour from me) to take care of my grumpy animals when we are not around. They never complain and usually water all my plants. So nice! Love the campaign!
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My husband dutifully packed and changed the dressing on my c-section wound when it reopened after my staples were removed. That was the nicest thing.
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I got a lot of help when both my kids were born. I try to “pay it forward” but i don’t know if I feel as generous as the generosity I felt.
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My husband brought me popcorn the other night when I had a craving, even after I told him not too bother because he was busy.
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One evening I was feeling particularly sad and ill and my hands were dirty but I didn’t have the energy to get up and wash them. My husband brought a tub of warm soapy water over to me and washed my hands for me.
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I felt so loved after my cousin died, since my best friends couldn’t be there in person, they checked on me constantly until I was ready to talk. Then we spent a long weekend together holed up in my girl’s apartment and they just showered love on me.
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There is gonna be a theme here. The nicest thing my husband has ever done for me is surprising me with brie and sushi after having our baby…oh, and getting up with him in the middle of the night – every night.
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I can’t think of the nicest thing ever but just yesterday a really lovely, nice thing happened so I’ll share that. My good friend moved away a few months ago and sent me a postcard. I sent her one back. Yesterday I got a two page letter on adorable stationary proclaiming us pen pals and promising another letter to come. It was so sweet and special to receive.
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Yay!!
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The nicest thing a friend has done for me recently: Showing up with frozen pizza, ice cream, diapers and wipes after I had a baby. The woman wasn’t even a mom herself, but she knew.
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What a fantastic project!
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I honestly can’t think of just one “nicest” thing because I feel like my friends and family are always doing lovely things…i am a very lucky woman!
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Nicest thing ever: telling me everything wasn’t going to be okay, it was just going to be what it was after my son died. Honest. To the point. And it was followed by a hug.
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My mom let me go away to boarding school when I was 14. I got an amazing education because of it – better than any since then, and I have a doctorate now. The local public school was no good and even though it was difficult financially, and a nightmare emotionally for her, she still let me do it. Having a daughter of my own now makes me realize what a nightmare it must have been for her to let me go, but it was such a gift! Thanks mama!
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This is the kind of thing that one wonders WHY would anyone NOT do this?
I had one teacher, last summer semester, who was not only supportive of my going to school and having a baby during the semester, but brought me supplies at home, was flexible…He was so kind, and I really appreciate it, and think of him often. He went out of his way to help me succeed.
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Probably the nicest thing that has ever happened to me was my good friend offering to buy me gas when I was absolutely tapped out and needed to get to and from work for another week.
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Yup!
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An aquaintance noticed that I had begun standing at a bus stop in the morning. He sent me an email and let me know that he had an ugly, but solid Ford Taurus he could let me have for almost nothing. I bought it and it made a huge difference.
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sunshine
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i went with my fiance, who was my boyfriend at the time, to buy flowers for a female friend of ours whose birthday party i could not attend, but that he would. we picked out these truly lovely iridescent pink roses, and i swallowed back feelings of wanting-ness, telling myself how ridiculous it is to feel jealous of my boyfriend giving flowers we’d picked out together to a woman we both like very much. on our way back home he pulled the car over abruptly and told me to wait for a minute. he ran across the street and came back with a nice bouquet of white flowers, saying, “these are for (our friend.)” then offered me the roses and said, “these are for you — i saw the way you looked at them and they’re meant to be yours.” i started to cry because i couldn’t believe the incredible blessing of being with a man who would recognize my shambly feelings in that situation and then go out of his way to respond to my feelings — to be gracious toward me, more gracious than i’d been toward myself after trying to internally talk myself out of having those feelings. anyway, that was when i knew for sure i would marry him.
hard to convey the lovely truth of that moment, and of course flowers are a blip compared to the importance of vaccines for those who can’t afford them, but thought i’d share one of the most meaningful, undeserved ways i’ve experienced another person’s kindness.
love that you are doing this!
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happy to chime in here about how much our connections, conversations, and comments can make such an impact. glad to be a part of Blogust with you. xo
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Great! Love it.
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The nicest thing someone has done for me this week is to donate money to my dog-rescue fundraiser, so I know how good it feels when other people support our efforts to help!
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Many people have done man kind things for me….but one that I distinctly remember was when I was 20. My husband had left me, my rebound guy had treated me like dog poo, and I was basically in the fetal position, unemployed and miserable. My uncle, a man I had very little contact with outside of Christmas dinner, called out of the blue and offered me a spot in his bartender certification course. He gave me the training so that I could support myself, and I have tended bar off and on every time I have needed money ever since. It was the ultimate example of “give a man a fish he’ll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” He gave me a little help and a lot of confidence at a time when I had none. Plus, he got me out of my bathrobe and out of the house again.
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In 2003 I was unemployed, very broke, and being courted by a nonprofit near Philadelphia (I lived in SF). If I took the job they’d help with my relocation expenses, but couldn’t do that AND fly me out for the interview. Friends of my family donated airline miles to pay for a ticket, my parents paid for my hotel, and a friend of my dad’s sent me $150 cash so meals didn’t have to go on a credit card (months earlier she had offered to pay me to sell some stuff on ebay for her but then ended up not selling it, and I hadn’t wanted to do it anyway, but she knew I needed the money so she just gave it). Everyone knew this was an amazing opportunity for me and gave what they could and made it happen. Let’s do the same for some kids.
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Loved me through my weakness, faults, mistakes, anxieties and abuses. My parents and my fiance have done that for me. Being taken to Italy for a birthday present wasn’t too shabby, either.
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My husband and I have three sons. He does all of our laundry – every last stitch, every time, without complaint.
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Also, yay for vaccines!
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The nicest thing anyone has done for me is give me life. I love you mom!
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Started thinking of nice things people have done for me and am sitting here feeling incredibly lucky.
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Nicest thing was my husband during our wedding prep. He kept saying “Whatever you want it to look like, I’ll make it happen for you.” Even when I wanted him to hang flowers from the ceiling without a ladder. He made a stressful day lovely and made my unreasonable requests seem reasonable.
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I’ve been jobless for a year and my family and friends have been trying to pull strings to help me get my foot in the door wherever they have connections. Finally got another job this week thanks to one of them. And the congratulatory messages have been touching.
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Maggie, thanks for sharing opportunities like this with all of us! I remember a post you wrote about the impact of helping others reach their life goals, this is such a great example of your commitment to making the world a better place. You rock!
When they discontinued Sr. class trips at my high school, my high school history teacher took me and one of my best friends to Washington D.C. for spring break. It was my first time to fly and ignited in me a love for not only history, but also traveling.
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The nicest thing anyone has done for me is my husband loving me everyday and making a beautiful baby with me. My two favorite boys are the nicest thing to ever happen to me.
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I have had so many nice things done for me by family, friends and strangers that it is hard to pick one but . . . I will. I was in despair my marriage was breaking up. My husband would disappear for days on end and I would be frantic. My inclination was to hibernate and wallow in my tears. But, my fried and co-worker, Linda, wouldn’t let me do it. She invited me to her house every weekend to cook for me and listen to my rants. By the time I actually got divorced, I was much more emotionally stable than I would have been had she not been a true friend. That was the saddest period of my life and she got me through it.
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I don’t have the mental space to come up with a “nicest thing” today, but I wanted to comment!
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My parents bought me a U-haul rental for my college graduation present so that I, their only child and my then-boyfriend, now-husband could move half way across the country to see more of the world, stretch our sense of independence and find a city that feels like home. A home a long, long way from my parents who I love so much it hurts. I sort of thought we’d move back, but just before we left my Dad hugged me and said he knew I was leaving for good, that Minneapolis wouldn’t be home any more, and he was right. At the moment, I didn’t appreciate their gift, but oooh as a few years pass I start to understand in a tiny, tiny way how big of a gift that was, and what a kindness to not make me feel beholden or guilty. They did nothing but share in my excitement and finance my ability to leave.
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It sounds super small, but once my ex-husband refilled my favorite lotion bottle. It was my least favorite task and my most favorite lotion. Long divorced now, I always think back at his kindness in doing that without being asked.
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Once in college I wrote a paper that won an award. I had to present at a large conference and I was really nervous. I visited a professor I liked to ask for pointers and when I told her what I was doing, she smiled HUGE and interrupted me by saying, “Your essay won?! That’s fucking sexy.” High fives. Best reaction ever – I had been feeling nervous instead of proud, but her comment turned that around.
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Oh! I forgot about one time someone anonymously sent me two $100 bills in the mail. Cash, with good wishes typed into the margin of the bills. I was at a very low, very broke, and it felt like $2,000 at the time.
Never figured out who it was from.
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our new neighbor, whom we really don’t know well, mowed our lawn after he mowed his own — just pushed the mower right over to our side and kept going! i ran outside to say, “what the?” and “THANKS!!!” and he just said he’d noticed we had crazy hours, and that we didn’t have much time or energy because we have a new business. it was so kind, observant, thoughtful, selfless, and simple. and it made a huge difference in my mindset and to-do list!
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Having friends and family there to support me during the toughest time of my life will always be the nicest thing to happen to me.
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i hope this is legit! The nicest thing was my wife saying I do!
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The list is so long, but one of the nicest things was when my parents paid for my husband and me (broke at the time) to go on vacation with them to Ireland. It was a charmed vacation, gorgeous, perfect, and we hadn’t been on vacation for years, and it was right before my husband got very sick and wouldn’t go on vacation again for years. It stands out in my mind as a golden week, an absolute gift.
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One of the nicest things anyone has done for me was my parents sneaking my sister in to the hospital to visit me when I was 16 and in for a week of stressful observation. She was too young to visit, and they lied to the security guards. She had been sleeping in our bunk bed alone, and I wanted to see her more than anyone.
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