`Thank Forward: A Gratitude Action Kit’
By Julie Shields and Mia Logan
Sometimes people need to be reminded that kindness comes in actions both large and small, so Bailey resident Julie Shields and friend Mia Logan of New Mexico have created a kit called “Thank Forward: A Gratitude Action Kit,” which is designed to inspire acts of kindness.
While the kit that is geared toward adults, it’s kid-friendly, Shields said. It’s a series of 21 cards with ideas for doing acts of kindness. Then after someone does an act of kindness, they write down what they did and pass the cards along.
Shields said the idea for the kit was born out of discussions with Logan about self-help guides that don’t give tangible ways to perform acts of kindness.
“I can’t do an act of kindness that is really big,” Shields said. “It made me feel that I was not good enough to do a big act of kindness. But I can do something that helps someone in a small way.”
She said people who get ideas of small kindness acts that can be done — a note of appreciation or making a batch of cookies, for example — can tell others about the idea so others can follow suit. It’s not bragging but just providing other ideas.
Shields said she did a drive to gather used pet toys and some bags of food for the Inter-Mountain Humane Society to help with dogs and cats there. It wasn’t huge, but it helped in some way.
The kits are available at Amazon.com and at some Barnes & Noble bookstores. For more information, visit thankforward.com.
`A History of Kindness’
`The Radiant Lives of Animals’
By Linda Hogan
Linda Hogan of Idledale published two books in 2020, which add to her collection of 20 books she has had published during her career.
The Native American writer has published a book of essays called “The Radiant Lives of Animals” and a collection of poetry called “A History of Kindness.”
“The essays are about living in a small cabin in a wildlife corridor in Idledale with a mustang and burro,” she explained. “It takes in the history, land and the experiences of one woman with many animals, plants and insects, and that living here has grown a human with love for the place.”
The poetry explores the relationship between the ecosystem and the human, she said, and the work she has done over the decades on her 100-year-old cabin.
“So far, the essays that I write – written pretty much for everybody cross race and cross class – I’ve become really well known as an environmental writer,” Hogan explained.
Hogan has been writing for decades, and when she first started, she found writing to be “magical.”
“I loved (writing) so well, I swore I would never do anything else,” she said, “and it all worked out.”
Logan has had many careers over the years: a teacher, researcher, speaker, editor, and she was inducted into the Chickasaw Nation Hall of Fame in 2007 for her contributions to indigenous literatures.
Find Hogan’s books at www.lindahoganwriter.com or at Amazon.com.