Kindness Is Never Wasted

I just had to share what happened to me yesterday. But to do that I have to rewind a bit.

Over the past year I have been downloading digital scrapbooking freebies from a couple of scrapbooking sites. During that time I have kept tabs on the blogs of a few designers whose work I like. Ellie Lash Designs is one of them.

Ellie does a great job on her digital scrapbooking kits, challenges and contests. Recently, she asked her readers to leave a recipe in her comments section and randomly chose four winners to receive her Kitchen Angels kit. It was such a simple idea, and one that really got me thinking.

Many designers ask for layout submissions before handing out free products. Now, I'm all for whipping up a layout for a chance to win cool stuff. But by randomly choosing winners from comments, Ellie's gift was more an act of kindness than a prize. And she got tasty recipes.

My college Public Relations prof would have said she is a relationship marketing genius. I think she didn't know what to cook and utilized her social network to get new ideas. Brilliant!

So I decided to share recipes in my blog.
(Isn't piggybacking off a good idea in itself a good idea?)

To thank Ellie, I e-mailed her about the Chocolate Coconut Balls recipe.

To my surprise, she sent a note back to say she appreciated my thoughtfulness and gave me two free kits -- just because!

I guess kindness is never wasted.

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” ~ Lao Tzu (Chinese taoist Philosopher, founder of Taoism, wrote "Tao Te Ching" (also "The Book of the Way"). 600 BC-531 BC)