A few months before Sareena turned 5, we had read the book Lily and the Paper Man together and Sareena was noticeably concerned to learn that there are people who don’t have houses and have to sleep and live on the streets. At the same time, she was deeply moved by watching Lily’s transformation unfold in the story from being scared and intimidated initially to empathising with the homeless man and wondering how he keeps himself warm on the streets. Sareena felt inspired to find a way to share her love with people who are homeless by gifting them items to help keep them warm in the cold winter here in London. Her 5th birthday party provided the perfect opportunity to transform Sareena’s inspiration into action :)

Sareena’s 5th birthday celebration was a pay-it-forward party, like all of her previous birthdays. In lieu of traditional birthday gifts, we invited her friends to bring along a “Blessing Bag” (thank you Shari from the Cubs team for sharing this lovely idea!), which they filled with warm winter accessories like a hat, gloves and socks, together with basic toiletries, dry foods and a drawing if they felt moved to include one :)



Sareena’s big day arrived and as Peter Pan is her absolute favourite story at the moment, her friends joined her for a Peter Pan themed birthday party, where the children all went on an Adventure to Neverland in a drama workshop led by Maria, who captured their imaginations and did such an incredible job getting all of the children engaged.



Sareena’s friends and their parents were very generous and brought along beautiful blessing bags filled with lots of love, kindness and very useful items! It was very sweet to hear stories from some of the parents about how they were grateful to have a chance to speak with their children about people who are homeless and to come up with ideas together of what they might include in the blessing bag. Another member of the ServiceSpace community here in London had learned about what we were doing for Sareena’s party and wanted in on the action, so he ordered boxes of warm hats, socks, gloves, hand warmers, hand sanitiser and toothbrushes and had everything shipped to our house!



After the party, when we started going through the gifts, Sareena asked if she could open a few personal gifts that her friends had gotten for her, so of course we said go for it. She excitedly opened a few gifts from her friends and then it was time to move onto the gifts that she was going to pay forward. What happened next really surprised me, even though by now I should know just how natural this is for children. As she started to open the blessing bags, she had the same level of excitement and a big smile on her face as she went through each item to see all the wonderful things her friends had thought to include in the blessing bags they made! As a parent, it was a joy to watch her eyes light up with each blessing bag she opened, admiring drawings that some of the children had made as she went along, and adding missing items into the bags from the shipment we had received from a friend. We were all feeling really grateful for how generous and thoughtful her friends and their families were in putting the blessing bags together. And it was so lovely to see that many of the kids who weren’t able to make it to her party still made blessing bags and sent them along to school for Sareena to pay forward, such a beautiful gesture!

This past week Sareena and I volunteered on a Thursday evening at the “Hosting the Homeless” programme that is run at a local church hall in our neighbourhood. This church hall also happens to be the exact place where we celebrated Sareena’s 4th birthday last year and that’s how we came to know about this project. Sareena was very excited about sharing the blessing bags and also curious as to know who she would be giving them to, what they would be like and how they might respond when they received the bags. Before we packed up the car with nearly 30 blessing bags, we placed a little letter inside each of the blessing bags. In this letter, we shared the story of how those blessing bags came to be and why Sareena was moved to gift them so that the guests who received them would know about the chain of love and kindness that led to them receiving the blessing bags.



While we were in the car, Sareena and I talked about how we are offering these blessing bags to share our love and kindness with people who don’t have houses to live in because when we do this, our heart grows and we have even more love to share with others. I reminded her that it didn’t matter how anybody looked, what they were wearing, if they were different in any way, because we were simply there to share our love unconditionally with everyone just the same as we would with any of our friends or family. She was chiming in with her interpretation of what I was sharing as well, and really seemed to resonate with the message of sharing her love through her presence and her actions.

When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed by all of the lovely volunteers who run the programme every Thursday evening as we went back and forth to the car several times to bring in all of the blessing bags. One of the volunteers noticed the little letter from Sareena inside a blessing bag so she took it out to read it. She was really touched to learn about what Sareena had done for her 5th birthday and told me numerous times all evening how she would never forget this. She even took a photo of the letter :) and wanted to tell others about it in case they felt moved to do something similar. She then passed the letter around to the other volunteers who had huge smiles on their faces as they read what Sareena was here to do.

A few minutes later, the doors opened and everyone welcomed the homeless guests for that evening with warm smiles, handshakes and hugs, the same way any of us would welcome guests into our own homes. It was so beautiful to see the volunteers engage so lovingly with all of the guests. As the guests got settled in for the evening, a volunteer introduced one of the homeless guests, Danny, to Sareena and myself and then shared Sareena’s letter with him to explain what we were planning to do that evening. Before he even started reading it he said to Sareena, “You’re going to make me cry, aren’t you?” :) And indeed, after he finished reading the letter, he was so touched and told Sareena so many times how thankful he was for what she was doing, offering his blessings and telling her how moved he was that a little 5-year-old would do something like this for him.

As the guests settled at the dinner table after putting their things away, it was time for Sareena to walk around and meet with each guest to offer a blessing bag. She was all smiles and so happy to finally have a chance to do what she had been waiting to do for some time. Each guest who she met filled her heart with so much love as they blessed her, thanked her, hugged her, hi-5’ed her and offered her the most beautiful smiles to share their gratitude for that moment, for the gifts and for her smile and kindness. As we made our way around to all of the guests one at a time, Sareena had a bounce in her step and a twinkle in her eye as she walked over to pick up another blessing bag to share with someone. It was truly a heart-warming experience for both of us and one that really taught us the meaning of unconditional love.

After we finished sharing the bags, we spent some time talking with a few of the guests and volunteers to learn more about their journeys. Patrick, one of the volunteers who has been serving the homeless for some time, was so sweet and kind and had a beautiful presence -- he was so open-hearted and unconditional with his love. He was really blown away that a 5-year-old would do this and thanked me so many times for planting seeds in her heart because it made him feel that the world is in good hands if this is the kind of thing that kids are learning from a young age. Danny spent a lot of time sharing with us how the programme operates, how they are supported by the West London Day Centre who organises a rota to ensure they have somewhere warm to sleep each night in a new church each day, and how he came to be homeless a few months ago.

Like many of the guests at this centre, Danny had a job as a builder and was working to earn his living but couldn’t quite afford proper housing with this income. In the lead up to Christmas, the person he was working for left the country without paying the employees on his project, and that’s how Danny found himself without a home to live in. Apparently, because all of the people like Danny have jobs, are clean (no substance abuse), have no mental health issues, etc, they are deemed to be a lower priority for housing and hence end up on the streets. He was so grateful that this kind of “Hosting the Homeless” programme exists so that they have somewhere to go each evening, where they are offered a hot meal, a cot to sleep in with a warm sleeping bag, a shower and breakfast in the morning, etc. He said that one of the places they are being hosted at next month happens to be in Mayfair, which is an upmarket neighbourhood in London, and the food for the evening meal is offered by celebrity chefs from local Michelin-starred restaurants so he was joking about how he might be enjoying some caviar next month courtesy of their generosity :)

As it approached time for us to make our way back home for Sareena’s bedtime, neither of us wanted to leave as we were having such a warm-hearted conversation with Danny and Patrick. But alas, it was getting late so we walked around to say goodbye to each of the guests and to wish them a good evening, as we made our way back home. In the car, I asked Sareena what was most special about the evening and she said when she got to actually give everyone a blessing bag and watch their eyes light up and smiles appear on their faces as they accepted the gifts. There was one gentleman from Easter Europe, who was Sareena’s favourite she said because he was so surprised when she gave him the blessing bag and asked several times if it really was for him. He then shook her hand to thank her multiple times in the evening and offer his blessings :)

As always, I’m so grateful to the ServiceSpace community of friends for planting seeds in my heart to support Sareena’s service journey in these little ways as she grows up. The constant flow of inspiration, ideas and love from all of you nourishes our family in ways that you may never know, but that I want you to know we are deeply grateful for.