Happy Birthday Gunther

Please accept this invitation to participate in my birthday event on Feb 26th 2005. I am going to Waterloo next year to pursue a degree/Msc in Peace and Conflict Studies. I am going to walk the path that I feel is right. It is my sincere hope that I might persuade you to join with me for what will be a most interesting moment in time. They say that dream is destiny…perhaps you might want to share a dream with me… This year for my birthday it is my wish to start a “Karma Wave”. For the last 27 years I have received gifts from my family and friends, I feel that this year, as it was last year that it is time that I gave back.

Have you ever believed that your one action in a random chance situation might have a positive imprint on thousands of people that you’ve never met? It might be a simple as opening a door or smiling at someone, something that just might start a chain reaction. To start this “Karma Wave” I am proposing that my friends and I spend an afternoon helping strangers in a “Random Acts of Kindness” day. Enclosed is your participatory “Mission”. I humbly ask you to spend some time on Saturday smiling and completing just a few of the Missions. With your help, this wave will be as global as we can make it. Flowing from Tokyo, London, Madrid, Sydney, New York, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Miami, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Humbolt, Calgary, somewhere in Thailand, Edmonton, Nelson, Winnipeg, and Vancouver, my friends and I will be spreading good cheer around.

It is my hope that you join with me in this experience. I believe it to be an opportunity for myself and all of my friends to connect on one day no matter where they are in the world. I made a wish last year on my birthday and it was granted. Helping someone that I’ve never met is my wish this year.

Together we can be the change we wish to see in the world.

Please feel free to do any 5 or more of the following:
1. Spend a full ten minutes telling your parents that you love them. (Meet them today for lunch, Pick up the phone and call them, Shoot them off a really long email, the more personal the better)
2. Spend full ten minutes telling someone close to you that you love them. (see above)
3. Take public transit somewhere. (use your U-Pass or the Equivalent) After you have paid your fare or shown your pass. Take out $5-$10 and drop it in the box. Explain to the bus driver that it is payment for the next few passengers whom you’ve never met.
4. Gather $10 and buy as many flowers as you can. Go to a busy part of town and distribute them to random people. Smiling all the way.
5. Go to a busy place and hold the door open for the next 25 people.
6. Go to a service establishment. Order something really small, give a sincere compliment to your server. Leave an extraordinarily large tip. (This one is for all you Money bags out there)
7. Go downtown and buy a homeless person a good meal.
8. Shovel your neighbours walkway. In the event there is no snow, do something nice for your neighbour. (Bake some cookies, rake their yard)
9. Goto a market and help someone carry their groceries to their car.
10. Go around your block and gather at least one food item from each neighbour and donate it to the food bank.
11. Go for a walk to your neighbourhood park and pick up all of the garbage you see.
12. Rifle through your closets and find items to donate to the Salvation Army or equivalent.
13. Organize a local bottle drive and donate proceeds to a charity of your choice.
14. Take your neighbour’s dog for a walk.
15. Call an old friend up and catch up on things.
16. Start a Peace Festival
17. Volunteer your time at a homeless shelter
18. Collect money from your neighbours and donate the proceeds to a charity of your choice
19. Please forward this to someone you care about