Random Acts of Kindness: Kids

I haven’t written about random acts of kindness in a few months, but it is NEVER far from my mind and I’m still “committing” them.

This week I was on a business trip in Minneapolis. One night we had dinner at Dave and Buster’s and they gave us unlimited game cards. I wasn’t all that thrilled about going. I mean I’m not into games and I didn’t have my kids with me.

After we ate I kind of walked around aimlessly for a few minutes and found one of the guys playing the coin dozer game. I had a card with unlimited playing time on it so I pulled up a chair and went for it. And once the first ticket spit out I was hooked. I understood the whole gambling thing finally!! Of course it’s easier on someone else’s dime too.

We decided that we were going to give our tickets to a random kid. We scoped out a few kids and settled on a little guy next to me. When we gave him our tickets he was just blown away. He was just four, but he was sooooooo excited.

I continued to play. And I was hitting it big time; the tickets were flowing. I ran the machine out. So I started talking to the next kid that was playing next to me, he might have been around 12. And I gave him my tickets.

Then I moved him to my machine told him the secret to hitting it and  I moved on to a-whole-nother area of the place. To the Elvis coin dozer.

Well, this game was spitting the tickets out like no tomorrow. That picture of there is probably 1/3 of what we won from that one machine. People were marveling over the amount of tickets we were getting. So once I built up tickets again I walked over to the 12 yo and gave him my tickets. His eyes got huge and he said “no, really, I can’t take anymore of your tickets.” I said “what am I gonna do, buy a toy?” and walked away. Then I thought for a second, turned around, went back to him and I said “just remember this moment and do something nice for a kid when you get older.” And he said “I PROMISE I WILL.”

And as I won more I would take them to him. Other kids in the place had gathered around him in awe. When we were leaving I went and gifted him my card. And a couple of other guys gave his buddies their cards too. With the promise of doing something nice for a kid when they got older too.

My heart was so full. I was so thrilled that we had literally changed a few kids lives. Let’s face it, thousands of Dave and Buster’s tickets and a free game card at age 12 is life changing.

I know that I will never see this kid again. In fact, I don’t even know his name, but I do know that he will never forget my face and I will never forget his. I’m 100% confident that when this kid grows into an adult that he is going to change a kid’s life. I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but he will. And hopefully the kids that grew around him also grasped the concept of what I’d given the first kid, when my coworkers gifted them also.

When you have the chance to change a child’s life you should not hesitate to do so. And be sure to ask them to perform a random act of kindness when they grow older too.