Photo: Vanessa Topper
“I didn’t really need anything,” she tells PEOPLE. “Everything they would have given me was plastic and stuff I really didn’t need.”
Instead, she asked for donations to help the homeless man who found and returned Gounard’s 80-year-old grandmother’s lost wallet.
On Dec. 22, her 12th birthday, Gounard and her mom set up a table in their Tiburon, Calif. driveway. Using a pair of tongs, Gounard handed out candy canes, goodie bags and Hanukkah gelt (chocolate coins) to her friends. On the table was a framed photo of the man who found her grandma’s wallet in a Dumpster outside the coffee shop where her grandma dropped it. She raised $479 that day.
A GoFundMe raised an additional $55,000, which Gounard gave to 56-year-old David Sean Currey – along with a note saying that in a dark tunnel, there is always light.
Vanessa Topper
“He started crying, which was really sweet,” Gounard says.
The homeless man was able to check into a hotel, and open a bank account.
“It was just perfect – in a year that was everything but perfect,” says her mother, Vanessa Topper, 49, acustom gift curator. “She did it all on her own. It came from her heart.”
Across the country, kids – and adults! – are having pay-it-forward pandemic parties – skipping traditional birthday celebrations, foregoing gifts, and opting to spread kindness and help others.
Courtesy Dawn Buckingham
After the devastating Texas snow and ice storm,Texas State Senator Dawn Buckinghamspent her 53rd birthday on Feb. 21 in Harper, Texas handing out water and food and supplies topeople who had no power for 10 days.
“There’s nothing better than helping those who need help on your birthday,” Buckingham told PEOPLE on her birthday morning. After the storm, Buckingham invited strangers into her Lakeway, Texas home to use her gas stove to cook meals. It was the end of hunting season – and she had a freezer full of venison she shared with strangers.
In Mineola, N.Y., fifth grader Mateo Solis’s grandmother disinfects COVID patients' rooms at NYU Winthrop hospital. The stories his grandmother told inspired Mateo to spend his 10th birthday raising money for the youngest COVID patient at the hospital, a 3-year-old girl.
“I just wanted to help,” Mateo says.
Carla Fernandes
He put 150 flyers in mailboxes and at local stores and delis near his home. On his May 3 birthday, his mom set up a table in the front yard.
“It was really amazing,” says his mother, 45-year-old event marketer, Carla Fernandes. “People just kept coming.”
In the end, he raised $1,014.96, which the hospital arranged for him to deliver to the young patient and her family after she was released (below).
“Everyone can put in a small amount and it can help so much,” Mateo says. “During hard times, everyone really has to help each other out.”
Sylvia Koss
To celebrate Sylvia Koss’s 30th birthday, she planned a “30 Is a Drag”-theme party – “some of my friends are drag queens, they were going to perform,” she says. “It was going to be awesome.”
But as her December 13 birthday grew closer, Koss watched the number of COVID cases climb.
“It didn’t seem responsible to have even 10 people together for an event,” says the insurance agent in Des Moines, Iowa.
So she scrapped her plans, and in early December launched a Facebook fundraiser with the goal of donating 30 pizzas to a local ER to celebrate her 30th birthday.
“The fundraiser blew up,” she says. She raised $1,700, which was enough to deliver 32 pizzas to five different hospitals — 160 pizzas in total — as well as a $350 gift card to a sixth hospital to buy pizzas Christmas Eve.
She loves the happy pizza-party pictures she received from hospital staffers.
“Their joy brought me a lot of joy,” Koss says. “That was the best part.”
Thinking about hosting your own pay-it-forward party? Some tips to keep in mind:
source: people.com
