“I have to believe that a smile, laughter, a helping hand, a hug, a touch, compassion and kindness are weapons of mass construction.” ~Dee

Note: Our Weapons of Mass Construction – Smiles For Healing project could really use donations of small items (branded items are perfectly fine!) suitable for giving away. If you’d like a bit of free promotion, or, if you’d just like to help us spread love, kindness and smiles, please consider donating money or gift items to this worthwhile project of compassion. Thank you so much and we wish you all life’s blessings!

For those of you who have received a gift out of nowhere, please keep reading and you’ll see why it was given to you.

Healing Our World Net was started after many many years of myself and my children doing small things on our own to try and make a difference. As my children got older, I began to feel more and more like I wasn’t doing enough.

There is so much in our world in need of attention and change – so many who need our help, whether that help is compassion, kindness, food, shelter, research, funds for established charities/initiatives…the list seems to go on forever.

What can one woman do? What can one family do? It was a question that literally sent me into an emotional tailspin which was made all the more poignant when we began losing so many of our high-profile humanitarians and ’sources of light’ in the summer of 2009 including Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Walter Cronkite, Les Paul, Ted Kennedy and Patrick Swayze.

I keep picturing a concert… the strains of a well-known ballad begin, house lights go down and lighters come out – thousands of them – everywhere – so many holding their little lighter and swaying to the music that it nearly lights up the stadium or venue as if the house lights never went down.

That is us. Those little individual lights are each of us. One may not be able to light a stadium – but many together can light the world.

My daughters, Jessica and Kaitlyn, and I began this site in the hopes that we could help even one person become healthier, happier, more informed, more ‘whole’ – because we believe that in order to heal the world we must first heal ourselves. This vision is rapidly growing into something much larger. We’re becoming a platform from where we can educate others on worthy causes and initiatives, issue calls to action, and hopefully inspire our brothers and sisters to do *something* to make a difference.

Out of this project came an idea – Weapons of Mass Construction – Smiles For Healing. Jess, Kaity and I began collecting small items such as aromatherapy roll-ons, small reflexology tools, boxes of fancy coffee, scented handmade aromatherapy soaps, and aroma necklaces. We got cards printed up (the image is up above), purchased envelopes, tape and markers and set to work. We began leaving gifts on doorsteps, in drivethroughs, in public restrooms, on buses, airplanes and anywhere else we could think of. Each gift has a little card and a sincerely heartfelt wish of peace and a smile. Jessi began putting a gift in all of her pizza deliveries (she is a college student who works at a local pizza shop) and Kait began leaving them around her college campus.

We’ve left them from here to Denver to Boston (and several places in between) and have begun mailing some each week to random folks we find in whitepages.com. We now have a small army of  folks across the US who have begun doing the same thing – including groups of high school and college students. Our ripples could become a tide – wouldn’t that be cool!

We are working on getting more groups of school-aged children to join us and we’ve had several offers of donations of small items to use in our project – which is just amazing! If you have items you’d like to donate, please contact us.

Why? It’s simple. Whether we realize it or not, we are ALREADY making a difference in our world with every action, and non-action, with every word spoken or held back, with every choice, with every smile, with every frown, with every thank you. So if we’re already making a difference, why on EARTH wouldn’t every single one of us strive to assure that difference is a positive one? (If you’d like to learn more small, low or no-cost ways to help, read this article:  No More Excuses! 55 Easy Ways to Help Heal Our World – Even From Your Couch!

A smile can BE the difference in someone’s day – and yes, even in someone’s life. We’re not rich, we’re not celebrities. We’re not special nor are we even close to perfect. But we do care, we do love and we do want to do *something* to make this world a better place. We don’t have the money nor the power and influence to go out and make a dramatic impact in one fell swoop – but that’s ok. This world is made up people – single individuals – and a pebble dropped in a pond makes a ripple. My prayer is that the ripples we are making are positive, uplifting and compassionate ones.

If you received a gift

If you received a small gift with our card – I fervently hope that you enjoy it – that it made you smile. We want you to know that someone does care – even if we have never met. And that you are important in this world. Bloom where you are planted and never forget that you are an intricate part of the overall design of our world and our lives. If we can ever do anything to help you, please, let us know.

If you’d like to help us or join us

There’s no ‘rules’ – nothing to sign, no strings attached. You can give what you’d like, what you can afford. You don’t have to use our name or website url. Just start giving what you can, as you can – including an uplifting and inspiring message with each gift. If you would like to use our cards, please contact us and we’ll get it set up. :) If you do decide to do this, or if it’s something that you are already doing, please contact us and give us your story – we would love to hear it and to publish it here on the site!

If you would like to make a donation of small gift items or contribute monetarily to help us purchase small gifts to give, please visit our Support the Smiles for Healing Project page!

And, as always – if there is anything we can do to help you or your cause/initiative – contact us – we will link to you, feature your site/cause or whatever else we can do to help!

Our highest calling is to leave this world just a little bit better than we found it.

Healing Our World Net, Inc. is a non-profit corporation in good standing – Entity ID number: 2009-000575270.