June 28

In keeping with my hope to spread this giving with strangers, my gift today was to a person who just appeared to need a little gift.  The Starbucks that I stop at in the morning is in a fairly suburban neighbourhood where the customers all seem like locals.  This might be why the person asking the patio patrons for change to buy a coffee seemed so out of place.  He looked more than a little wayward in his attempt to get these suburbanites to contribute to his cause.  As I was leaving with my coffee, I noticed his unsuccessful attempts and offered him my coffee.  He seemed shocked that I would just hand him my coffee.  I’m not sure if he even liked my hazelnut, low-fat, concoction but he seemed grateful to be able to stop trying to get the locals to contribute to his cause.  I went back in to buy myself a new coffee and added a pastry for him, which I passed on as I returned to my car.

The really shocking part of this gift was that as I was headed to my car, one of the local patrons stopped me to tell me that I should not have given this man my coffee.  He explained that I was only encouraging him to hang around the coffee shop which the locals did not want.  It was my turn to be shocked.  This is the very first time that any of this giving has ended in any negative attention.  Luckily, I have the ability to walk away from such cautions still feeling like I made the right decision for me, and a little sad for this cautionary soul—he clearly has no idea how good this giving made me feel.

June 29

My very last day of the challenge and this gift is the only one that came wrapped in the traditional sense.  I chose to make my giving year-end gifts to colleagues who served as mentors throughout the school year.  I bought books for these gifts because I believe that there is almost no better gift than that of indulgent escape in a good book!

I am sort of proud that this is the first “traditional” gift of the challenge and that it came on the last day.  I think this helped to show me that giving does not have to look like a wrapped gift presented on a special day; it can just be the gift of talent or time.

Read about Rachel’s previous challenge days:

• Days 26 & 27
• Days 20–25
• Days 15–19
• Days 13–14
• Days 10, 11, & 12
• Days 8 & 9
• Day 7
• Days 5 & 6
• Day 4
• Days 2 & 3
• Day 1

Read about why Rachel started the 29 Day Challenge.

Related posts:

1. 29 Days of Giving: Days 5 & 6
2. 29 Days of Giving: Days 26-27
3. 29 Days of Giving: Day 7