Random Acts of Kindness. Do you teach the importance of this to your children? If there was just a limited amount of qualities I could pass on to my girls, the importance of doing nice things for others and expecting nothing in return would one quality I would wish for them.

I’m a member of an awesome group of people (mostly women) that have bestowed on me multiple acts of kindness in the last couple weeks that reminded me just how many “good guys” are out there. When you turn on the news each day, you hear very little good. Pick up a local newspaper, I can almost guarantee that the bad news will majorly outweigh the good.  But not in this group.  Wondering what group this is and if you can be a part of it? Of course you can – this group is my Sunshine friends.

We are all members of a great rewards program called Sunshine Rewards. This is a fabolous site in itself. Here you get a few paid clicks and paid emails, but to really increase your earnings, Sunshine Rewards offers up to 3 paid surveys a day, paid offers, and pays you for shopping through their site. I do VERY LITTLE online shopping, and I’ve made almost $800 in a little over a year of active membership with them. You can cash out your earnings in so many ways that everyone is bound to find a cashout option for them. Personally I cash out for Disney Gift Cards, but many Disney fans also opt to cash out for Disney Dollars.  Not a Disney fan? No problem, you can also cash out directly to paypal or for gift cards to a multitude of places such as Sephora, Walmart, Amazon, movie tickets, various restaurants, bookstores, Home Depot, Kohls, Sears, Toys R Us, and Old Navy. Yes, Sunshine Rewards is the best rewards program I’ve been a member of, and yes making extra money is great! In this economy, it helps everyone, but I can assure you for this single mom, the extra money really comes in handy. But that’s not what really makes Sunshine Rewards special. It’s not what makes me login every morning. It’s not what brings me back in the evenings even when I’m exhausted.

It’s the family that Sunshine Rewards has created in their forums that I find so addicting. Though I’ve not met any of these members, there are many who I truly call my friends. It may be hard to understand as you read this – I’ve never met them, but they are my friends? But if you were to join Sunshine Rewards and stick around the forum for long, you’ll see what I mean. Cate over at The Blonde Diaries and I took this plunge to blogging on our own domains together after we had the help of the owner of Sunshine Rewards, Tricia,  to teach us the ropes of blogging.  And in the last couple weeks, three other members of Sunshine Rewards have displayed some amazing “random acts of kindness” that will show you just how much of a family we SR members do become. 

In the forums, we have created a group of secret pals. We are secret pals for 3 months sending small gifts to bring “sunshine” to each others lives every other week.  As we ended the current round of secret pals, my secret pal, known as JackandSophiesMom on the forums, included in her last package a Target gift card for my grandparents whose house has recently burnt down. When I opened this last package, I literally had tears come to my eyes at her touching generosity. Earlier this week, I received a card in the mail. I knew the name in the return address portion looked familiar, but I just couldn’t quite figure out why.  I carried the mail on out to the car, and I opened the card first as we pulled away out of complete curiosity. Inside this card was a Wal-mart gift card from another member of Sunshine Rewards, NurseMinnie76, again for my grandparents.  I’m usually not an emotional person – really I’m not, but once again in just a matter of days, another Sunshine Rewards member had brought me to tears. Yes, these are the types of random acts of kindness that I hope I show my daughters in my day to day life that they will pass on to future generations. Last night was a rough night. For some reason I simply could not sleep, but of course, my seven year old slept peacefully and was up at 7:00 this morning ready for breakfast and entertainment. So with just 3 hours of sleep, I stumbled out of bed and became Mommy. The entire time I’m cooking breakfast and talking to her about what she needs to do before church, I’m thinking about how much I just wish I had time to go back to bed, but alas, laundry needs put up, I need to go to town and pick up some groceries and a Sunday paper, and the yard needs mowed (and these are just the items at the top of the list for today).  What do I find when I take just a minute to check my email this morning, but an e-card from my new Sunshine Rewards secret pal. I can’t give you a name yet as we are just now becoming friends, but I can tell you that she has perfect timing at bringing “sunshine” into my life at the right time.  Below, the thinking of you card that I received. Thank You Secret Pal!