Friday, January 23, 2015

Do a Random Act of Kindness for Randy


As you know, I have been trying to help my friend Dawn Blackburn in her relentless pursuit to bring her beloved piglet, Randy, home from the Longmeadow Rescue Ranch a division of the Humane Society of Missouri. If you missed the details you can get them here. If you would like to learn more about Dawn Blackburn, you can do that here.

As a part of trying to get the word out, especially, but not exclusively, in the St. Louis area we have decided to start a Random Act of Kindness Campaign. I say not exclusively, because, we have a petition going on Change.org to try and convince Longmeadow that it is not only, but most importantly, in Randy's best interest to go home, but theirs as well. The more signatures we get the more likely they will listen. At this point we are just 14 shy of 1500 signatures. There are signatures from all over the United States and many from all over the world. Sweden, South Africa, Canada, The United Kingdom, Scotland, just to name a few. We need more though. We need to convince them that this is turning in to a public relations nightmare. That their donations are going to be affected. They don't seem to give two oinks about what is best for Randy, despite being told by at least three veterinarians, being held in isolation in a livestock facility will be detrimental to Randy's health. Including the Veterinarian for the Missouri Dept. of Agriculture. They still refuse to listen. 

Anyway, I digress. This is the mission, should you choose to accept it. Print off the random act of kindness cards. I admit I am not tech savvy. I'm not sure if you can print them off directly from my blog, if I could figure out how to make it easier I would. Here is how I'm doing it. I have an iPhone, so it might be different with other phones. I have saved the photo off Bring Randy the Pig Home page on Facebook to my phone. From there I can save it to my computer and print it off. Except, my printer doesn't work. Soooo..... I am going to send the photo to Walgreens photo, have them print it as an 8x10 photo. I'll have copies made from there. Hopefully, those of you who would like to do this won't have to go to that extent, but not everyone has a printer. I'm just using Walgreens because I have an app for them. There are lots of other places. 

Now, that you have cards in hand, go to it! When you are in line at a drive thru, give the cashier and extra 5 bucks for the person behind you. Give the cashier two of the cards. Ask them to give the person you are paying for the cards. That way they have one to keep and one to pay it forward with. 

Other things you could do, help a frazzled mother load her groceries in the car, so she can hold her screaming baby. Give her two cards, ask her to pay it forward. Clean the snow off a neighbors drive, tape two cards to their front door, in an envelope that says, Pay It Forward. Give the kids' school bus driver a few of the cookies you just baked, with of course, two cards and a kind "pay it forward." 

I think the biggest thing that will help this campaign work is, just give them the card and say "pay it forward and thank you." Don't try to explain it to them. That frazzled mom needs to get her kids home. The bus driver needs to stay on schedule. We don't want to get preachy, just get the word out. If people ask, give short explanations. Like, "I'm trying to help get a little pet piglet back home to his family." Use words like family instead of owner. Use the words "his" and "him" instead of it. Make him sound endearing, like a family dog or cat. Not like a farm animal. Not all people understand that pigs can be pets. We need to quickly make them understand that that is exactly what Randy is, without pressure. We want them to like us enough to look at the card. And maybe, just maybe, one card will end up in one hand, that can be that one voice that can #bringRandythePigHome.

Thank you al for your support. 

If you haven't already, please sign the petition. 









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