In an e-vite for 6th grader Mikayla Gounard’s drive-by birthday party (pictured above), she told her friends she didn’t want a present.
“I didn’t really need anything,” she tells PEOPLE. “Everything they would have given me was plastic and something I didn’t really need.”
Instead, she asked for donations to help a homeless man who found and returned the lost wallet of Gunar’s 80-year-old grandmother.
“I was so inspired by that story,” Gounard told PEOPLE. She wanted to repay her kindness shown to her grandmother by the stranger.
On her 12th birthday, December 22nd, Gunnar and her mother set up a table on a driveway in Tiburon, California. Gounard used tongs to hand out candy canes, goodie bags, and Hanukkah her jelts (chocolate her coins) to her friends. On the table was a framed photo of a man who found her grandma’s purse in the trash outside the coffee shop where her grandma had dropped her purse, which she had collected $479 for the day .
GoFundMe raised another $55,000, which Gunar donated to 56-year-old David Sean Curry. With a note that there is always light in the dark tunnel.
“He started crying. It was really sweet,” says Gounard.
A homeless man was able to check into a hotel and open a bank account.
“It was just perfect. It’s been a year far from perfect,” says her mother, Vanessa Topper, 49, a custom gift curator. I came from the heart of
Children and adults all over the world! Skip traditional birthday celebrations, withhold gifts, and choose to spread kindness and help others.
After a devastating Texas snow and ice storm, Texas Senator Dawn Buckingham spent her 53rd birthday on February 21 in Harper, Texas, delivering water, food and supplies to those without power for 10 days. was handed out.
“There’s nothing better than helping someone in need on your birthday,” Buckingham told PEOPLE on his birthday morning. After the storm, Buckingham invited a stranger to his home in Lakeway, Texas I asked them to cook me a meal using a gas stove. It was the end of hunting season – and she had a freezer full of venison that she shared with a stranger.
In Mineola, NY, the grandmother of 5th grader Mateo Solis disinfects a room for COVID patients at NYU Winthrop Hospital. A story told by his grandmother inspired Mateo to spend his 10th birthday raising money for her 3-year-old girl, the youngest COVID patient in the hospital. rice field.
“I just wanted to help,” says Mateo.
He put 150 flyers in the mailbox and put them in a local store or deli near his home. For his May 3rd birthday, his mom set up a table in his front yard.
For eight hours, people passed and drove by to put money into his donation jar.
“It was amazing,” says her mother, Carla Fernandez, a 45-year-old event marketer. “People just kept coming.”
In the end, he collected $1,014.96. The hospital arranged for him to deliver to her young patient and her family after she was released (bottom).
“Everybody can throw in a little bit, and it helps a lot,” says Mateo.
To celebrate Sylvia Koss’ 30th birthday, she planned a ’30 Is a Drag’ themed party. “It’s going to be amazing.”
But as his Dec. 13 birthday approached, Kos saw the number of COVID cases rise.
An insurance agent in Des Moines, Iowa, said, “I didn’t feel responsible for having 10 people show up for the event.”
So she scrapped the plan and started a Facebook fundraiser with the goal of donating 30 pizzas to her local ER to celebrate her 30th birthday in early December.
“The fundraiser was a disaster,” she says. She collected her $1,700. This was enough to deliver her 32 pizzas (160 pizzas total) to 5 different hospitals, and to her sixth hospital for buying pizzas on Christmas Eve, she spent $350. It was enough to offer a gift card.
She loves the happy pizza party photos she receives from the hospital staff.
“Their joy brought me great joy,” says Kos. “That was the best part.”
Thinking of hosting your own pay forward party? A few tips to keep in mind:
- Find causes close to your heart: Raise funds for things that are personally important to you.
- Set up ways for friends and family to donate online: Whether it’s using GoFundMe or submitting your Venmo or PayPal info, find ways for those who don’t have cash to donate. Facebook makes it easy for you to solicit donations for charity through the fundraising tab.
- Spread the word: Share your work on social media, create flyers, or email friends and family to ask for help!
