Last week’s 26 Tuesday’s honoree was Benjamin Wheeler. On Friday I was literally using “the facilities” at a local restaurant and pondering what to do in honor of Benjamin. As I completed “my business,” I realized I was using the last of that particular roll of toilet paper. Out of sheer habit I discarded the empty tube, unwrapped a roll nearby and replaced it. It was only then that I realized I had just completed an act of kindness–not only for the next “inhabitant” of the restroom, but also for the staff of the restaurant, who happened to be quite busy with their noontime crowd.

I hope, as we honor our very last victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, that all of us, myself included, begin to do acts of kindness in just that way–as a matter of habit. The reality is that it takes very little money to fix the world’s problems. Often, all it takes is lots of people being kind in small and big ways each day. Imagine what the world would be like if all of us simply made acts of kindness a habit every day!

This now brings our MIP total of acts of kindness to: 97! I hope you will let me know about your act of kindness this week so we can get to the magical total of 100 by our last Tuesday next week. To do so, please submit a comment below. Thanks!

Our last honoree is Allison N. Wyatt. Here is what CNN had to say about Allison:

Allison N. Wyatt, 6

It seems fitting that Allison was already doing her acts of kindness and that she is our last honoree! Let’s finish this MIP series with a strong finish in her honor!

Tomorrow’s Post: Heaven isn’t what we think…

You might also like: 26 Tuesdays: Benjamin Wheeler; 26 Tuesdays: Victoria Soto; 26 Tuesdays: Mary Sherlach; and 26 Tuesdays: Lauren Rousseau

Last week 26 Tuesdays honored Mary Sherlach, the counselor at Sandy Hook who, along with her principal, rushed into the corridor from their offices after hearing gunshots. U.S. school counselors do a nearly impossible job–their days are often filled with doing things they never really wanted to do, such as testing, scheduling, and other administrative work. Often, the counseling work they long to do has to be crammed into short segments of time (not ideal for helping people) or before or after school. It means long hours throughout the entire year–counselor usually do not get their summers off, like their teaching counterparts.

And yet, school counselors are often the very people who make life tolerable for a great number of kids. Sadly, more and more of our children are forced to live in families that are struggling for one reason or another. The reality is that life is often not very fair for our children. So, what sort of act of kindness should I do to honor Mary Sherlach?

My inspiration for this week’s act of kindness came from guess who. A school counselor. She happens to be a good friend of mine and when life didn’t seem very fair for me last week, I “vented” in her direction. She responded with her typical caring, her crazy sense of humor and…a card. She, herself, lives a life that is often not very fair to her. And yet, she still devotes herself to helping others with whatever problems they present to her. So I purchased a number of cards this week to send to others, those who have suffered some big hurts this week and could use a kind word from a friend. Such a simple thing to do, but a fast and dying act of kindness, due to the internet.

This puts our MIP acts of kindness count at 93! We closing in on the 100 mark! What did you do as your act of kindness this week?

Today’s honoree is the last teacher we will honor and Victoria Soto has been hailed as a hero for taking fast action to try and protect her students before she was unmercifully gunned down. Here is more about her via CNN:

Victoria Soto, 27

My mother came to a point in her life where she had to make the decision to either get blood transfusions almost every month in order to live an additional 2 years or to just “call it quits” and allow nature and God to take her to her final resting place. In true Mom style, she chose the latter, having already lived a wonderful 80 years. We (our entire family) were all there when she signed the papers indicating her decision and it was, as you can imagine, a rather sobering moment. Thus, my husband decided to try and lighten the “environment” a little by asking her the following question,”Nana? If you were to do it all over again, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?” My mother was known for her pithy, inspirational thoughts in moments such as these and we expected such a response from this question. Instead, she surprised us all with this response: “Eat more ice cream.” We all laughed and when we thought about her past, we realized she was being true to herself–she had always loved ice cream and her constant weight issues had made it difficult for her to indulge that passion as often as she had wanted.

Today “Eat more ice cream” always brings a smile to our faces in our family and we now use the phrase to justify seemingly overly-indulgent, overly selfish purchases. It’s as if she’s giving us permission to enjoy life all over again. Last Thursday my youngest and I, along with quite a few members of our small community, chose to indulge her little mantra, too. Dairy Queen elected to donate $ 1 to the Children’s Miracle Network for every blizzard purchased on that day. I dispatched my youngest to go pick up 2 blizzards for our “lunch” that day and he elected to purchase 1 for his buddy, too. It’s difficult to find a child in America who doesn’t like or love ice cream and I like to think that Lauren Rousseau (last week’s 26 Tuesdays honoree) would love that one of the most favorite things for a child was used for some good in this world. And I also like to think that Mom was smiling down on us while we greedily gulped every bite of those blizzards.

If I include the folks who made it known that they also indulged their ice cream tooth last Friday, our MIP acts of kindness count just climbed to a whopping 86! If you also did an act of kindness, particularly if you also bought a blizzard on Thursday, please let me know via the comment box below or by contacting me via email on the Contact page. Who knew eating ice cream could do so much good in one tiny town?!

This week’s honoree is via CNN:

Mary Sherlach, 56