The Birthday Project - FAQ

If you missed the video posted on facebook the other day, here is a link:



I have been getting a lot of questions from people about the project so I thought I would provide some more information here.

Q - Where did you first hear about this?
A - I saw a posting on a blog written by a friend of a friend. She first learned about it through pinterest. The girl with the original idea is named Robyn Bomar and she is from Florida. I don't know her at all. This is the link to how she spent her 38th birthday. The whole project was born out of the tremendous response she received from that blog post. She then started a website specifically dedicated to The Birthday Project (link here).

Q - Where did you get all of the ideas for the 38 acts of kindness?
A - The list we used was a combination of things I had found online (Robyn's original post, other people who have done the birthday project for their birthdays, googling "random acts of kindness") and some ideas I thought of on my own.

Q- Where did you get all of the signs/cards used that day?
A - I found most of them on this girl's blog. She had just completed her own birthday project and very generously shared her creations online for others to use. I found the rest of them by looking in the quote section on pinterest or doing a google image search for quotes about kindness.

Q - How long did it take you to put everything together?
A - I first stumbled across the blog posting sometime last spring, and I knew right away I wanted to do this for my next birthday. I thought about things A LOT between then and now, and it's a good thing I did because in order to fit all 38 things in in one day, a lot of prep work was required.

Q - How exactly did you do all 38 things in one day?
A - I made a spreadsheet of all of the acts we were going to do. Then I grouped them by area of town. Then we went to those areas with our lists in hand and made sure we did everything in that location before driving off to another area of town.

Q - Was this expensive to do?
A - Yes and no. Since I had a while to plan, I tried to do/buy a little bit every week or two. Meg and Erin also helped contribute with different things ($, gift cards, package items, etc...) It helped a lot to have them do that. I donated a lot of things we already had (toy train set, old bridesmaid dress, Becca's old swing, etc...) to help keep the cost down. I also opted not to do some of the pricier ideas I came across (example: pay for someone's groceries) and instead did things like put coupons in the grocery store.

Q - Which of the 38 acts was your favorite?
A - I loved all of the things we did at the Dollar Store. The kids (and their mom) were so genuinely touched that we gave them balloons, it was fun to hide the dollar bills in different places, and the employees who worked there were so enthusiastic about what we were doing. Even though they were not the actual recipients of any of the acts, they were excited about our plans and they were fun people to share with.

It was such a fun day, and I thank Meg and Erin for coming all the way to Fort Wayne to help me out with it. You girls are the best!