Earlier this year in February Puerto Vallarta experienced some pretty scary stuff. A major cartel boss was arrested and it resulted in the cartel retaliating by setting fire to convenience stores, vehicles, some pharmacies, and a few random other businesses. Civilians were not at all targeted in this event, and there was not one casualty. However with the businesses burned down, vehicles damaged, and over all stressful situations many lives were impacted.
So the idea I submitted to DDG was to use the money to treat the people of Vallarta. My idea was to simply do random acts of kindness wherever I went. For example a round of beers at the bar for everyone, paying everyone’s bus fare, buying groceries for people at the grocery store. Once I received the grant I immediately went on facebook to tell my friends about it and ask them to double it. Which they did, that same week!
I then had $1,000 USD which equals a whole lot of pesos and I was very excited to start the project. Pretty quickly I learned that idea was not great. I’m an expat and I mostly go to expat places. I wanted this to benefit the Mexicans, not so much the expats who have plenty. So I started paying for things for people who need it instead. Like covering a chemo treatment for a sick street dog, covering club entry fee for low income women; things like that. Then I started getting people coming to me with their hands out asking for money. I felt horrible because I knew I couldn't help these people the way they needed, and this was also not what the grant given to me was intended for. So I just stopped for a few months and gave people money out of my own pocket because I wanted to help, but the DDG money was not the way to help.
After a few months I came up with a new idea. Kinda the same thing, but in reverse lol. Instead of trying to treat everyone, why not bless individuals. So I started looking for vendors, people walking around selling things to support their families. I found vendors selling empanadas, flowers, thread bracelets, bead bracelets, keychains, cookies, and more. I even let one vendor braid my hair so I could show her some support too. This is our slow season so not many tourists come here now, and even less than normal this year because of what happened with the cartel and tourists being scared. This has resulted in many local people struggling to stay afloat financially. So I started buying up a lot of items from these vendors and giving it out to whoever. And it turned out that this was exactly the best thing I could do for the people of Vallarta. Everytime I did it you could just see the instant joy and relief in their eyes. It may not solve their problems, but it sure did help them in that moment.
This kindness experiment for me was an unexpected emotional rollercoaster. But it was so very worth it. Just seeing the joy it brought was everything. And I’m so so grateful to DDG and my friends who matched the grant for trusting me with this incredible task.
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