Instead of spending money on Black Friday, Northfield teen spreads gratitude
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How did you spend your Black Friday? Chances are you found some good deals online and hit a few stores for holiday shopping. Nika Hirsch, 14, has a different Black Friday tradition. And she has hundreds of strangers to thank for supporting her efforts to spread gratitude and raise money for cancer research in her hometown of Northfield, Minn.
For our series Thank You, Stranger, MPR News producer Ellen Finn talked to Nika Hirsch.
You can check out their campaign of gratitude called “This Life Rocks” on Facebook and Instagram.
Thank You, Stranger is our series about unexpected kindness in our lives. If you have a story to share about a stranger who made your life a little brighter, we want to hear it.
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Audio transcript
For our series Thank You, Stranger, MPR producer Ellen Finn talked to Nika Hirsch.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ELLEN FINN: It all started after Nika's dad had recovered from a bout of cancer when she was six years old. At the same time, Nika was struggling with a condition called selective mutism that made it extremely difficult for her to speak.
NIKA HIRSCH: A hundred kind deeds day is something my mom and I invented. One time she was telling me about Black Friday and how people used to go crazy fighting over toys and stuff. And I was like six. And I asked why they did stuff like that right after Thanksgiving instead of nice stuff. And my mom said that we could do some nice stuff, and I agreed. I thought it would be fun.
And she asked me how many nice things we should do, and I thought of a huge number in my first grade brain and said we should do a hundred. We get a bunch of toys, and we donate them to the children's hospital, and we get some dog toys and donate them to the Humane Society.
JANA HIRSCH: We'll go into the Mall of America on Black Friday, and it'll be like, OK, every person in the Lindt shop is getting a free truffle on us. Or when she was little, she'd write little things on Post-It notes, go into a Target or Walmart, and it would-- she'd put a little note and put it on a mirror saying "you look great in that."
ELLEN FINN: That's Nika's mom, Jana. Over the years, she and Nika have made a long list of ways to complete 100 kind deeds on Black Friday.
JANA HIRSCH: Take a couple of quarters, and put them in the ALDI shopping carts so somebody already was ready to go. Going to someone's Free Little Library and straightening that up. Take some of the pets at the Humane Society, and like the ones that haven't been walked for a while, and take those guys for a walk.
It was just kind of like whatever Nika was feeling at the moment. It wasn't just us. People around the country and even around the world were doing stuff.
ELLEN FINN: With the help of social media pages called This Life Rocks, Nika shares her good deeds. And she got hundreds of people around the world to join her. They spend the day messaging each other and tallying their kind deeds.
JANA HIRSCH: People are like, hey, baked goods for my neighbor. Went and read a book to my little sister, or whatever it might be. Cleaned the kitchen and surprised my mom. And sometimes people are like, donated $500 to a good cause. And some of them are, I fixed my uncle's broken watch for him that he's been wanting to-- but it's the greatest feeling because for this whole day, you're not seeing any of the sad stuff that we see in the news. You're just seeing all these amazing things that people did.
ELLEN FINN: All the while, Nika's father was fighting multiple rounds of cancer. Over the years, Nika and her followers raised $50,000 for sarcoma cancer research. When Nika's dad died from brain cancer when she was 11, she decided to up those 100 kind deeds on Black Friday to 1,000. They easily met their target.
NIKA HIRSCH: Kind of decided to do it in honor of him.
ELLEN FINN: Nika noticed that feelings of kindness and gratitude were constantly in conversation with each other. A boost in one generated a boost in the other. Nika helped create a gratitude tree in front of the Northfield Public Library. It's a place for people to leave notes thanking strangers, things, and loved ones.
NIKA HIRSCH: A lot of times it's just like, I'm thankful for my family and my mom because she cooks wonderful meals. LEGOs.
JANA HIRSCH: My friends, my professors, jobs, having safety, everybody reading this, being silly. And "I'm grateful for the constant strength to fight each day."
NIKA HIRSCH: My family has just received a lot of help and kindness throughout everything that's happened to us, and I guess it just feels good to give back and not just be the people who receive all the time.
ELLEN FINN: To her family, friends, and school that helped her create a culture of gratitude and generosity--
NIKA HIRSCH: Thank you because I was just a little kid. And so many people, from other kids to adults, were always helping pitch in.
JANA HIRSCH: Those people helped create the waves. Nika was throwing the proverbial pebble in the pond, and somebody was picking up that vibration and helping send it out into the world. We've seen some harder times, but what I've seen is when the world is at its worst, it seems that people are at their best.
I have seen my kids, myself, be so completely supported and in large part due to this virtual community, and I'm just grateful for the goodwill that has been shown to us. We are not the people creating this life. We're just reflecting it.
NINA MOINI: Great story. Thanks to producer Ellen Finn for bringing that to us.
Well, this year, Nika and her family were traveling on Black Friday to spread her dad's ashes in Alaska, so they bumped back the day of the 100 kind deeds to December 14. So to follow Nika's journey or learn how to participate, you can find her on Instagram and Facebook @thisliferocks.
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