Day 650: Happy 2012!

This has nothing to do with New Year's or good deeds, but I took this photo and find it peaceful for some reason, so there you go.

I thought a great way to start the year off right would be with a brand new post after, ahem, a short break.

To be honest, after two-plus years of good deeding, I’d kind of run out of ideas. (Not for random acts of kindness,of course, but for things you might be interested in reading about. I was even boring myself, lol.)

Soooooo, what I plan to do is mix things up a little … share stories of others’ good deeding along with my own feeble attempts. So please feel free to send me any of your own deeds or others you stumble across!

First up is an awesome initiative for seniors in Pennsylvania called the “Twilight Wish Foundation” … here’s more about them from PhillyBurbs.com:

Cass Forkin, founder and chairman of the Twilight Wish Foundation in her Doylestown, PA, office. (Photo: Kim Weimer/phillyBurbs.com staff photographer)

Never too old to wish

By Jo Ciavaglia Staff writer

If senior citizens could have a wish granted, what would they ask for?

That is what Cass Forkin wanted to know in 2003 when she was preparing to launch a Doylestown based nonprofit that grants requests for seniors who lack the resources to make their wishes come true.

Her first answers she got, courtesy of a therapist friend who surveyed his elderly clients, seemed simple enough: a dinner show, a zoo trip, a salon visit.

But the request from an 81-year-old nursing home resident named Margaret left Forkin in tears for three days. The woman wanted a headstone for the grave of her son, who had died six months earlier.

Margaret’s wish, granted three months later, launched more than 1,000 wishes over the last eight years for the Twilight Wish Foundation. The group is among the 10 local charities that the Courier Times and The Intelligencer of Doylestown are highlighting this year.

Forkin, 50, a former corporate health care executive, founded Twilight Wish after a life-changing encounter with several elderly women in the Dublin Star Diner. On a whim, Forkin treated the women to lunch, and they, in turn, inspired her new life mission — fulfilling wishes for low-income seniors age 68 or older and those who live in nursing homes.

The group, which relies on donations and volunteer efforts, has granted nearly 1,660 wishes and counting through its five active U.S. chapters. The number works out to an average of a wish every other day, Forkin said.

“It is exciting every time,” Forkin said. “Everyone has a different wish or a wish for a different reason; when you see someone’s wish come true, it’s such a deep feeling. It never gets old.” Read rest HERE.

Song of the day, jazzy “This Christmas” … enjoy! 🙂