Day 7 of Gratefulness: Pay It Forward

I started my morning off in a little bit of a rush, as I just did not want to get out of bed.  I never got around to making breakfast but instead headed to Whole Foods to pick up a breakfast burrito.  I knew I needed something to keep me going through all the meetings I had scheduled this morning.  As I was checking out the cashier asked if I wanted a rose. I was a little confused as it was not Valentines Day or even my birthday and I was being asked if I wanted a rose.  I asked her what the roses were about and she mentioned to me that Whole Foods has a program called Whole Trade Guarantee™ roses give back to the communities where they are grown.

I pulled this additional information right from their website about the program: Grown in the Ecuadorian Andes by a group of Fair Trade certified farms, these “blooms with benefits” help to cultivate better working conditions and equitable wages for the farms’ workers. For each case of Whole Trade roses purchased by Whole Foods Market, an additional percentage is paid directly to worker groups from each farm who collectively decide how to use the money. Some development projects have included education, training, scholarships, health care and housing.

This sounded like a really cool program so I took the rose not sure what to do with it but I knew something would come along that was meant to be.  Not more than 1 minute leaving the store I ran into Matt.  Matt is a vendor for Denver Voice.  The mission of Denver Voice is to a dialogue addressing the roots of homelessness by telling stories of people whose lives are impacted by poverty and homelessness and to offer economic, educational and empowerment opportunities for the impoverished community. Matt sells their monthly newspaper to financially support himself and I often see him outside of the Whole Foods I shop at.  (To learn more about the Denver Voice visit www.denvervoice.org)

I decided to give the rose to Matt as well as one of my Pay It Forward bracelets that I was wearing.  His first reaction was- really, you want to give me a rose.  Of course I wanted to give him the rose and I did with the bracelet.  All I said was to wear the bracelet and remember to be kind to others.  When the time comes Pay It Forward to someone else.  Little did I know that time was coming in less than a minute.

From there I headed to my car to make it to my 8:30 am meeting.  While I was getting into my car I glanced over at Matt and a young women had approached him to buy a paper.  He handed her the paper and the rose- she was shocked and a brought a smile to her face.  It was a beautiful moment and I wish I could have captured it on video.  There were so many people affected by the simple act of kindness and it was just that - a simple act.  I am grateful for the rose, for seeing Matt today and getting to experience a beautiful moment in life.