Acts of Kindness – A life project

1. Acts of Kindness – A life project Gabriel Boucher & Samuel Barrette Group 31 «It is possible to change this world with little acts of kindness. Imagine the chain reaction that could happen. Imagine what would be the world if EVERYONE was showing love and kindness to each other. Together, we CAN change this world !»

2. Testing =) Repairing school’s electric bass We are in music concentration, so why not help our music teachers ! We replaced the bass’s output jack that was broken : it was impossible to have any sound with this bass during music class or Stage Band rehearsal. Sometime, they are more than one Stage Band practicing at the same time, and because one of the two bass was broken, it was impossible for one of the bassist to play with the rest of the band. It was fun to work with electronic parts and see how this instrument is made. We learned new things. When it was the time to test if the bass was working, we were at the same time proud of ourselves and very happy ! Our music and Stage Band teacher, Serge, was very happy to have the second bass. That will help all the bassists in school a lot to practice their music. Thank you to Gabriel’s dad who lead us to repair the bass. The output jack ----»

3. Doing volunteer work Everybody likes the work that volunteer workers do for them, so we did volunteer work at “Mascouche's Support Center” to help the people that are working there. We sorted a lot of clothes (we had XXL category) and put a hanger on each sweater or t-shirt. We worked there for two hours. Samuel’s grandmother works there three days a week. We though that it would be great to help the volunteers for an evening. Samuel knows that there was a lot of work because her grandmother told him. So we came there on an evening. The volunteers where happy to have some help and it was fun to work with them. They where very kind with us. One funny thing with that job was to found weird t-shirts. Some volunteers there already worked for us (we used to be clients) so, it’s now our turn to work for them. The volunteers were happy to have a little bit of help from us. The person in charge of us was also proud and happy of our work. Thank you to Samuel’s grandmother for helping us to make this happen.

4. Take care of a friend at the hospital How long would be time at the hospital after surgery if there is nobody to play with you ? Very long for the kid and his parent(s). So we decided to take care and play with Samuel’s little brother Josué at the Montreal Children’s Hospital (MUHC) while his mother hang out with her family (exeption for Samuel) in Downtown Montreal (Josué had a surgery to reconstruct his bladder and stayed at the hospital for two weeks). We played with plasticine, builded puzzle or building our own Angry Birds levels with plastic blocks and small birds. The time was very long for Josué and especially for his mother because she needed to stay. Samuel’s brothers and sister were missing their mom. We tought that give her a little time with her family will be great. Josué was very happy so we were happy (chain reaction). It was funny to play with him, it was a little bit different for him too. He met Gabriel and was surprise to see someone new. Josué had a fun time because it was different. Samuel’s mother was relieved of staying at the hospital and her family was finaly happy to see her mom after a long time ! Thank you to Samuel’s father who make the “taxi” and to the hospital itself because they accept that we take care of Josué instead of his mother.

5. Playing with kids to free up their mothers We remembered when we were 4 or 5 years old when teens were playing with our friends and us, so it is now our turn to play with young kids. So we helped Ms. Florence to anime sports for young people in a Home-School Group in Mascouche (Samuel was going there before he came at “du Coteau”). We did some warm-ups then the kids play with an obstacle course that we “builded”. At the end, we played all together to ball games. It is rare that the moms have time to spend together because they have to take care and play with their kids so we decided to give them a break for this afternoon. We think that the greater moments were when the kids were saying “thank you”. Other than that, the time wasn’t long because we were kind of “playing” with the kids and it was funny ! The moms were very happy to have a big free time where they can do many things that they won’t have the time for it usually. The kids were surprise at the beginning but at the end, they were telling us that they like this experience a lot. Thank you to Ms. Florence for the organisation and to the kids for their good attitude !

6. A Quebec classic : shovel snow !!! A tradition in Quebec : shovel the snow after a snowstorm. So we shoveled Samuel’s house balcony because they were about 90 centimeters of snow and the balcony was riscing to fall because of the weight of all the snow. We decided to shovel this snow to help his parents and to make a snow mountain so the kids would play games with this hill. Also, if we didn’t shovel the snow, the balcony may lean on one side. The job wasn’t so easy because of the icy snow under the new snow and it was very long to do this job but we still had fun like making jokes to each other with snowballs or other things. For the parents, this was a job less and they were happy to have more time for themselves and for the kids (Samuel's brothers and sister), they were very happy to have and good hill to play at the “King of the Mountain” with their friends and us.

7. Cook fudge for our teachers Trying to be in Christmas spirit, we cooked some cherry and marshmallow fudge for all our teachers and to our two bus drivers for Christmas. We decided to cook this dessert to all this people in recognition for all the work they do for us. In the kitchen, the feeling was weird because we’re not accustomed to cook, especially for people out of our family. When we were packing, it was difficult to cut all the fudge pieces proximally the same size, to assemble the boxes or to make the floors correctly, but, the most important thing is that we had fun. During the distribution, we were a bit stressed, especially for the bus drivers because we don’t know them like our teachers and we didn’t have much time. The bus drivers were surprised because they don’t usually receive gifts from the students. The teachers were happy to have some dessert from their students, some asked for the recipe. All our thanks to Samuel’s mother for the grocery and her advices.

8. Babysitting for free Everybody remembers the good moments they had when our parents were hanging out and someone was babysitting them and doing fun activities with them. We thought that it would be nice to give fun to children. So we did it. We babysat Samuel’s brothers and sister (6 children). In the afternoon, we slid on snow toboggans on Châteaubriant and Ste-Marie street corner at Mascouche. When we were back, we ate supper, helped the two babies to eat and did a part of the dishes (Jérémie did the rest because he’s older than his brothers and sister). Later in the night, we put the babies to bed and played with the other children at board games or practicing magic tricks. Gabriel helped Timothé with his homework after dinner too. After the other kids were in their beds, we watched Infoman with Jérémie. We want to thank Jérémie for the dishes and to all the kids for their good attitude !

9. Helping friends that are moving Everybody remembers when they move (déménagent) and how much it is difficult unless some people help them. One of our friend, ZacharieGélinas, is moving with all his family. They are passing through difficult times and we decide to help them to prepare the house for the visitors. We shoveled the snow outside to let them easily watch the backyard. Then, we went inside and clean up some rooms, we helped them also for the laundry, to sweep the floor and other things. The Gélinas were pleased of our help because they are really tired of all the job there is to do. This is a very nice family and they always persevere in their problems. They’re a very good example for all of us. We want to thank Samuel’s brother, Jérémie, for his help and to the Gélinas because they invited us and leaded us a little bit. Samuel want also to give a special thank to Ms. Nathalie Gélinas for her help in his film (she was driving the car in the beginning).

10. Play ’n educate to a brother We all have been babies and we all know that we need a kind of education since our first weeks. Samuel has a little brother (Josué, so we called this act of kindness : Josué part 2 !) that has past the first year of his life to be layed down on his back while drinking water. His mental development is late, so we decide to help him with some card games : we played hide and seek with cards : we showed him cards and ask him to find, for example, the “tiger” card. We were also asking him what were the meaning of the objects on the cards. He was learning and playing ! We “played” at many much other games during almost an hour. Sometimes, it was harder because Josué didn’t want to obey during period of 3, 4 or 5 minutes. That was constructive for both of us and Josué because we learned a new activity for our future kids… Thank you to Samuel’s mother for her explications.

11. Cook a meal for chearful people Teachers help students a lot in life. But why so few students help their teachers outside school ? We knew that Marie-Neige was pregnant and we know by our mother’s experiences, that headaches are very frequent when your pregnant and sometimes, you just don’t want to cook for dinner. So we decide to cook (again) for Marie-Neige and Gabriel’s family because we did nothing yet for her. We were looking for something that is not too hard to cook for beginners, healthy, delicious and inexpensive… meat macaroni !!! In the kitchen, we had funny times, hard times and weird times (again). This is another fun way to learn things. One of our problems was when we arrived to give the macaroni to Marie-Neige… she wasn’t there. We didn’t know what to do with the food during the first period : do you imagine Gabriel in the maths lesson with meat macaroni ? Well, François, our music teacher, saved us and put the macaroni in the fridge until Marie-Neige comes. Finally, this adventure was exciting, weird but fun. Special thanks to François, our mothers and to Olivier Payette for the photo.

12. In conclusion… In conclusion, this project was a real lesson for us. We learned many good things and developed a bigger experience. One of the greatest things that we had learn is that there is more joy to give than to receive. We developed friendship, leadership, perseverance, joy for giving and many other qualities. For sure this adventure gave us a few problems. Sometimes, we were both busy and didn’t have time for the project, we lost our USB key, we ran out of ideas… Well, all those just gave us more experience. This project is not only profitable for us, but also for all the people we helped. Do not forget the chain reaction… Imagine a new world… Thank you Camelia for this awesome life project ! Samuel Barrette Gabriel Boucher Group 31 April 8th, 2014 “…Together, we CAN change this world !”

13. The end (for school project only !!!)