The family and friends of Listowel’s Heidi Schlumpf are carrying her legacy of kindness forward following her passing this summer.
Schlumpf was diagnosed with Triple Negative metastatic breast cancer in April of 2021. She immediately established a fundraiser for the Listowel Wingham Hospital Alliance and London Regional Cancer Program with the London Health Sciences Foundation. Her goal was $100,000, and her fundraiser online recently sailed past that goal, sitting at over $122,000 at the time of writing. Heidi tragically lost her battle, passing away on August 10th this year. Heidi’s brother, Tyler VanDyke, says the family wants to carry her legacy forward with her #PutAKindDeedInYourFeed campaign. Tyler says Heidi’s goal was to just inspire everyone to be nicer and more kind to each other, with the campaign now being celebrated, hopefully on a yearly basis, on Heidi’s birthday, September 8th.
Tyler says the goal of the campaign is simple; do something nice for someone, and share the kind deed on social media using the #PutAKindDeedInYourFeed hashtag. You can also use the hashtag and share it should you be on the receiving end of a nice deed on September 8th.
“The idea is simply that, the more people share, the more other people will be compelled to do something, and it’ll grow and spread much like it did last year, hopefully, maybe even a little bit more.”
When it comes to kindness, and helping others, Tyler says his sister just wanted the community of Listowel, and people everywhere, to be inspired to help others. He says it’s an easy thing to get behind, and everyone can participate and spread kindness in this way, using the hashtag, because it doesn’t need to be a grand gesture. It can be as big or small as you choose, as long as it helps brighten up the day of someone else.
“I think the message is simple; it doesn’t take much, to do something nice for someone else. When it was her birthday last year, she had one birthday wish, and that was for people to be nice to each other. It’s a pretty simple thing. If perhaps this spurs a little bit more of that throughout the year and we can continue to push this on her birthday each year, I mean, it’s going to make things a little bit better for everyone. I think this kind of thing is really easy to get behind, it’s sort of universal.”
On September 8, use your social media feeds to tell stories of good deeds you put in motion, or that you were on the receiving end of, and use the hashtag #PutAKindDeedInYourFeed.
Donations to Heidi’s fundraiser can be made here.
