The warm-hearted residents of a Hednesford care home placed homemade gifts around the town to share a little kindness with their neighbours.
The residents living at Littleton Lodge, on Bishop Street, put 20 hand-tied bouquets of flowers and painted pebbles in different locations, in the hope of bringing smiles to strangers’ faces.
The bouquets, along with ‘kindness pebbles’ bearing designs including bees and hearts, were left at two sites in the town centre – the Davy Lamp outside the Lightworks and at the town clock on Market Street.
Residents wrote inspirational messages, including ‘no act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted’ and ‘look after each other’ on paper tags, before attaching them to the colourful bunches of flowers.
Included in the floral posies were many perennial favourites, from pale pink and white roses to bright pink carnations, baby’s breath, lisianthus and dark purple statice.
The stones, which were all hand-painted by residents, also bore the simple message ‘be kind’.
The selfless stunt captured the imagination of the town, with hundreds of people taking to social media to say they had seen the colourful flowers and pebbles and to express their thanks.
Sheila Bishop said on Facebook: ” Love this ….a fantastic way to spread the word ….kindness …..and …put a smile on people’s face”
Laura Cardno, also on Facebook, said: ” Thank you. I have just picked me up one, you have no idea how much I really needed that smile today.”
Rachel Ellis, home manager, Littleton Lodge, which is a residential and dementia care home operated by Ideal Carehomes, said: “We spoke about World Kindness Day at a residents’ meeting and decided to take part.
“A few of the residents came up with the idea of leaving bunches of flowers around town, which I thought was lovely. I couldn’t believe how positively people reacted to it locally. It just shows how the little things really count.
“There were literally hundreds of Facebook comments as news of our project was shared across many groups. The residents found it very heart-warming that their efforts were so appreciated.”
Littleton Lodge’s goodwill exercise coincided with World Kindness Day on 13 November.