Small Actions. Bigger, Better Tomorrows.

Sometimes the smallest acts become part of something much bigger than we imagined.

My daughter Ali and I spent Saturday volunteering with Urban Bee Lab at the Menlo College Art & Wine Festival.

There we were, wearing our blue bee shirts, talking with people about pollinators, biodiversity, and the small things each of us can do to help. And I kept thinking about how much of life works exactly this way.

One person plants something. Another person teaches something. Someone else volunteers a Saturday. Small actions. Better tomorrows. Bigger tomorrows. \

Most of the time, we don’t get to know what happens next. We do something small. We plant something, volunteer, send a card, leave a little gratitude rock in the hollow of a tree, or say something kind. Then we go on with our lives. We rarely get to see how far our goodness travels.

But this week, I did.

It started Saturday when my daughter Ali and I volunteered with Urban Bee Lab at the Menlo College Art & Wine Festival. Ali serves on the board, and I got to spend the day beside her talking with people about bees, pollinators and biodiversity. There were students and families and people who wandered over because they were curious. It was one of those days made up almost entirely of small things: a conversation, a question, a donation, someone learning something they hadn’t known before. Small actions that might become part of a better, bigger tomorrow.

Then, a few days later, I was hiking with my friends John, Sharon and Vicky when we came to the Hobbit Tree. John knew nothing about my Hobbit Tree adventure. He didn’t know I had searched for this tree or about the little yellow gratitude rock I had eventually tucked inside its hollow. I didn’t tell him any of that. I simply said, “Ah, look at that beautiful madrone tree.”

John walked over to look. Then he bent down and peered inside the hollow, all by himself. I stood there watching him discover this little bit of magic without any help from me. Usually we leave the rock, send the note, offer the kindness or say the encouraging word and never know what happens next. This time, I got to see someone discover something I had left behind. Sometimes we get to see the ripple.

And then there was Mary.

My friend Mary is a gifted artist in Astoria, Oregon. She creates beautiful cards from her original artwork that are sold in a local gift shop, with 100% of the proceeds donated to the Assistance League of the Columbia Pacific, serving children in need. Mary sends me her beautiful cards one at a time, and I treasure them. Recently, she also sent me a stack of little “poster cards” that hadn’t found a home in the store.

I brought them with me to the Urban Bee Lab booth. Ali looked at them and had an idea: instead of selling them, we could offer one as a thank-you gift to anyone who made a $25 donation to Urban Bee Lab. And that’s how one of Mary’s little pieces of art, created hundreds of miles away in Astoria, ended up in the hands of the delighted gentleman in this photograph. He made his donation, chose the one with the bees, and just look at his face!

Suddenly I could see the whole journey. Mary created something beautiful and generous in Oregon. She gave it to me. I carried it to Menlo College. Ali found a new way for it to give. A stranger made a donation that will help Urban Bee Lab, and Mary’s art went home with him.

And it still isn’t finished traveling. I’m going to send this story to Mary. She’ll share it with the hundreds of people who receive her Bright Lights newsletter. And now I’m sharing it with you.

We almost never get to see this part. We don’t know what happens to the encouraging words we say, the kindness we offer, the time we give, or the beautiful things we send out into the world. Maybe we don’t need to know. Maybe our job is simply to keep putting good things into motion.

But every once in a while, we get the wonderful gift of seeing the ripple.

Look how far a little gift can travel.

Find the Good and Say it Out Loud. ❤️