Put a smile on someone’s face

Julia ♦ November 10, 2021 ♦ 2 Comments

2008 USO celebrity holiday tour in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
DoD photo by Chad J. McNeeley; image in the public domain.

“We must learn to realize that “now” is happening and will very soon be gone…We must look at the ink on the calendar and see an immediate opportunity to do something wonderful, incredible, or beautiful. It’s that simple.” – Dan Pearce

“If you’ve put a smile on someone’s face today, you’ve done more good than you know.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich

Update for 2021: this is the last of my daily postings, which I continued for the first two years of my blog. As of today, the frequency of re-blogged posts will drop to twice per week. I may add some new ones here and there, but that will depend on many things, including how much time I’m able to make for it. However, I will do my very best to continue re-posting the five years of  twice-daily posts. 

The celebration described here is not an active one, but a distant and very happy memory. As you can see by the 101 comments, we had quite an event! I wouldn’t rule out doing something like that again sometime. Has anyone figured out who the mystery donor was?

Xhosa children by Zakysant, licensed under CCA-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Okay readers, today is the day. Thanks for joining us.
Let the two-year anniversary celebration begin!

Smiling children in Bangladesh, by bri vos via CC-BY-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Let’s put some smiles out there in the world.

Australian AusAID volunteers in Cambodia, 2010, via Wikimedia Commons

There are all sorts of ways to do it…

Girls carrying water in India, via Wikimedia Commons

…but today you have an opportunity that won’t cost you anything but good will.

A victim of the Haiti earthquake gets help from the U. S. Navy. Public domain image

 Read more about our celebration here.

Jill Biden and Michelle Obama at a USO celebration, public domain image.

Choose one of the nonprofit group opportunities listed…

Children collect clean water provided by UKAid. Image via Wikimedia Commons

 …and leave a comment here, specifying where you’d like us to make a donation in your honor.

Matt with friends at Camp Baker, 2012

We’ll be glad you did…and we hope you will too!

The NGO Give a Kid a Backpack brings smiles in 2010. Via Wikimedia Commons
Public domain photograph from defenseimagery.mil

LIVE UPDATE, 12 noon 11/10/14 – We still have a long ways to go before reaching the donation limit, so keep those requests coming in! I’ll be back in a few hours to update again.  Help us defeat despair and put smiles on lots of faces!

Disclaimer: all but one of these photos are from Wikimedia Commons, depicting various forms of humanitarian assistance.  They do not represent our celebration today, nor does the use of these photos constitute an endorsement of this effort by any organization pictured.  They are meant only to provide inspiration for global outreach, and also maybe put a smile on your face today.

This post was first published seven years ago today. As I continue to re-blog the posts from seven years past, they will (due to calendar variations) now fall on Wednesdays and Saturdays, so that the dates will correspond exactly. The celebration linked above has come and gone, but I continue to be in touch with all the non-profit groups listed, and I’m still actively involved with many of them in one way or another.

The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.