Community Stories

My name is Mark. I am from St. Louis. I went into the Seeds of Happiness store where I was picking up smiles to share on a cruise that my wife and I were taking with another couple. We've been vacationing with this other couple almost our entire adult life. Come to find out Mark, the Seeds of Happiness guy and I, in the small world fashion, our lives overlap. I work with Mark's wife from time to time.  That was enough for Mark to treat me like I was an insider at his studio. He asked me to try something out. Mark took me back in the studio, he dug through a few boxes. He  comes up with these four triangular-round blue and red puzzle pieces made of clay. I watched as he puts the four pieces down on the table and start spinning and turning them until they make a four inch Seeds of Happiness logo. He says to me, give one to your wife, one to your buddy, and one to his wife, and Mark told me to keep one for myself. He continued, during your trip, when you're going to dinner or if you're going to do something fun,  make sure when you guys all get together before you eat or before you do whatever you're going to do, put your puzzle together so you start that event off with a smile. Understanding that if everybody does not bring their piece of the puzzle, the smile is not complete.

Honestly I left the studio with the smiles that I was planning to give out on the cruise, thinking “whatever” about the puzzle. Me being a guy, I thought it seemed a little corny. Well, I got home and told my wife about the puzzle. She loved the idea. At the airport prior to leaving we divvied up the puzzle pieces. We told our friends that Mark said to put these together before we do anything fun or adventurous. So there, at the airport for the first time, we assembled the smile. Well, let me tell you, it was the funniest thing! We all absolutely had a ball with it. At two points during this vacation, somebody forgot their piece of the puzzle. Let me tell you, with all the joy Mark intended, they ran  back to their room to get their puzzle piece so that we would start our excursion with a smile. It was hilarious! It was fun! It worked! It was part of our trip! We vowed that we would never go on a vacation without our pieces of the puzzle. I can't wait for our next vacation. Who knows we might complete our smile in some other country.

I went by the Seeds of Happiness studio with my buddy, the husband in the other couple. We both told Mark that never in our imagination would we have guessed how big of a part of the trip this would become. Mark responded, I just gave you a reminder on how to start your days. You are the ones who made the memories. You see, you never know what one little creative act of kindness might lead to. He then said, it usually leads to another act of kindness. Think about it, two  couples confined on a cruise ship, nothing but fun and no problems? That tells me, you start and finished each day feeling kindness towards each other! 
We told Mark he should sell these little “gems of a puzzle”.

A little side note. Mark told me he had made these for companies for meetings, as a metaphor! You see, of the people that work in a department could put their pieces together to make a smile. This then sets a tone of understand that every job is important, and if you're missing one piece to the puzzle, the company’s happiness is not complete. 

I thought this was brilliant.

So thanks again Mark. I'll keep you posted on our next trip.

Mark

I keep a bag of Seeds in my car at all times. I share them with my circle of friends or complete strangers. It is a great inexpensive way to Touch somebody's heart and create a life lesson. Big things can come in little packages. 

May the Lord bless you and all of the rest of the work you do!

Dana

I am in my mid 20s. We live in Vermont and Christmas is like a story book. The Vermont snow the house lit up with Christmas lights a fire in the fireplace and a family dinner on the table, and Santa comes at night leaving the opening of gifts for Christmas morning. As a child the anticipation of Christmas morning was almost unbearable . 

As long as I can remember, My family has a tradition that on Christmas Eve we open one gift from my parents. These gifts have always come from your studio in St. Louis. As we grow older and realize sometimes the most powerful gifts are not the big packages on Christmas morning, but small, powerful, meaningful, handmade gifts from the heart. When I was away attending college I could not come home for Christmas. All four years my mom sent me a candle with your story about Sharing the Light of Love on Christmas. It was beautiful. It actually made me feel like I was there with my family as we lit our candles on FaceTime with each other.  l always let that candle burn until it was gone. As the tradition goes, we now light a candle while someone reads your Sharing the Light of Love Christmas story. We do this for anyone that might be alone in the world.

Then my mom gives us each a bag of Seeds to share and one of your ornaments.  None of us can wait. We do this after Christmas dinner. Honestly for me and my siblings this is our favorite part of Christmas. It's the embodiment of us being together. Waiting to get our new ornament, well it matches the anticipation of when we were kids waiting for Christmas morning to come. This is a tradition that I will keep in my life when I have my own kids. Thank you for doing what you do. It's amazing how you touch people’s lives. I can't wait to see what ornament I get this year.

Love Kara

Just a little spark for you at Seeds of Happiness. Recently, on a church mission trip to Florida to help clean up from the recent hurricanes, I handed out Seeds of Happiness. For me this was the best part of the trip, seeing the expressions and the emotions that came from sharing such a simple act of kindness.  Just amazing. Emotions and comments range from, what the heck is this cute quirky smile, thank you, I needed this! All the way to bursting into tears. Ironically a couple people knew what they were.

One couple said, ‘oh my, thank you, we had one that sat on our coffee pot, but now we don't have a kitchen so it must be somewhere in the neighborhood. I hope if somebody finds it, it's somebody that needs it.’ 

Thank you for making these and creating an opportunity for me to spread some kindness in an area of the torn up state of Florida.

Ivy

I thought I would let you know I am a re-seeder. I get my Seeds of Happiness online then I put one in my pocket. I keep it with me along with a card that's in my purse. If somebody needs a smile, I pull it out of my pocket and I share it with them. This way I get the luck from the smile and I share it with somebody who needs some luck. Then I go back to the bag of Seeds I bought, and start over again. I called this re-seeding.

Just thought you might like to know.

Ginny

I met somebody the other day from your studio. I think it might've been the guy who makes the Smiles. I was pumping gas at the gas station when someone pulled up next to me and started pumping gas on a scooter. He shared two Seeds of Happiness with me one for me to keep and one for me to give away. What he didn't know is I had a job interview. I left one of the Seeds of Happiness with the person who interviewed me. I got the job!

After a couple months talking to the person who hired me, they told me, there were over 100 people applying for the job. As they narrowed it down and were calling people back for second interviews and third interviews, my name kept coming up as the person who left that little smile. Ultimately I got the job, I think because of the Seeds of Happiness.

So thank you whoever that was on that scooter.

Tina

I'm 20 years old and from the Midwest, grew up there my entire life. I moved to New York to find my way through education. Even though the city is a hustle and bustle of people and there's always somebody to talk to I find myself being very lonely and isolated. A lot of times I'm longing for home, family and just the general atmosphere of the Midwest. My mom sent me a package in the mail; in this package there was a small 5 x 5 patch of grass which New York is devoid of unless you go to Central Park. There was also a little handmade clay smile. Now I have this patch of grass sitting on my tiny kitchen windowsill and on top of it is this little Seeds of Happiness smile. Now, when I'm feeling melancholy I literally run my hand through the grass with one hand, I hold the Seed of Happiness in my other hand, look at it and think about my mom and all the love that she has for me from 900 miles away. Thank you for supplying us unique way to stay connected.

When my mom died, the whole family was at the hospital when she took her last beautiful breath. Her hands were clinched tight right at her chest. As her body relaxed, this funny looking little smile rolled out of her hand. We all looked at each other like, “What is that?”. I picked it up and said, “It's a little smile.” We looked around the room to find a clue of what it might be. Well low and behold there was a card that explained it was a Seed of Happiness and they're really there just to share with people that might need a little smile. We were also touched by it that when it came time for the funeral we put it in her coffin and buried her with it so she would have an eternal smile. Thank you for these little creations, they put us at peace.

One day in August, my mom invited me and my five siblings over to her and my dad’s house for dinner. As adults and having children of our own we had not been together since the holidays, which would have been Christmas nine months prior. My mom said she had a little surprise for each of us. As we sat down to dinner at the table, we each had a cup turned upside down in front of us. We lifted the cups to reveal a little smile underneath. This little smile touched our hearts because our mom gave them to us. We all loved the card that came with the smile that explained what Seeds of Happiness was all about. After dinner was over, we all went home with our little smiles. I put mine on my coffee pot to start each day with a smile. My brother put his smile on his nightstand and my sisters put them in various spots around their houses. 

My dad called in the middle of the night and said he was at the hospital with my mom. She had an aneurysm and passed away later that night. The smiles she gave us at that last dinner are so important to us and dear to our hearts because my mom gave them to us from the kindness in her heart. When my brother lost his Seed of Happiness smile somewhere in his house, all of us siblings got together and tore his house apart to find it. (It was under his couch.) 

I’m sharing this story because my dad wanted me to reach out to say thank you because these smiles are what we hold onto as a last memory of my mother and her kindness.