I thought of this on the way home.

btw, Chicken Soup is for the Soul is a GREAT great place to get ideas and inspiration. I love those books.

So one of the stories I read was about a mother, whose child just came home from a stay at the hospital with a life threatening disease. In these types of cases, typically the chid's hospital room is covered with cards, letters, flowers, etc. When the son came home, he was very dejected. He would go to the mailbox everyday to see if there was something for him, but alas there was nothing. He felt like he was forgotten. So the mom got an idea. She became her son's secret penpal. At one point, she realized her son had figured out that she was the penpal but they both continued the game. Her son passed away (if my memory serves me correctly, it was because of the disease), but she realizes that there are hundreds of other kids out there like her son. So she obtained addresses of other children and began sending them cards and notes (not necessarily starting pen pal relationships) so that these other children too would feel that someone out there cared about them even after they were out of the hospital.

Now I dont remember the name of the org or woman, but I do own the Chicken Soup that its from (if my memory serves me well, though I haven't touched those books since high school).

I was thinking that it might be a good smile card event. To write letters to these children.

--Heena

Some ideas that we talked about next time (would be great to post a best-practices list so we can post this event off helpothers.org).

• Try to put up posters on sandwich boards that we can hang on shoulders.
• People should really wave because it animates the whole experience.
• Each smile poster should have no more than 4 words.
• If you got the pipes, cheer. It really gets people jazzed up.
• Make a few extra posters so others can join in.
• Bring kids. A kid's invitation to smile is untoppable.
• Create some banners that have the word "honk" so we can create even more of a smiley scene. :)
• For a little while, it's good for everyone at an intersection to bunch up. Increases the volume.
• Make sure you have a smile on your face, even if your jaws hurt. :)

Anything I forgot?