As pre-finals stress sets in after Thanksgiving break, students all over campus are busy studying and preparing projects; however, two students added another item to their checklist: to make people’s days.
Senior Louis Missurelli and junior Zach Lang tackled this challenge by starting a Facebook group called “You Just Made My Day.” Students can post on the page requesting something that would make their day. Others then comment on the posts if they can help.
“The idea came from a YouTube video that I saw a couple weeks ago … of a guy who walked around asking people what he could do to make their day,” Missurelli said. “I kind of took that idea and said, ‘How can I improve on it by using social media and the giant campus body we have?’”
The idea took off, and the Facebook group drew in more than 500 members. Missurell said many of the requests called for singing Christmas songs and buying sweets. Senior Maggie LoCoco happily went out of her way to buy someone a chai tea latte.
“It is amazing what kind of an impact a small act of kindness can do for someone’s day,” LoCoco said. “This is why I jumped on the opportunity to get Mary (Naughton) a latte. When I brought it to her, we ended up having such a great conversation that completely and unexpectedly made my day.”
Missurelli and Lang also received many unexpected requests.
“We sang happy birthday to someone’s grandma over the phone, Grandma Barb,” Missurelli said.
Senior Lauren Van Beek both gave and received. She fulfilled a request for movie tickets and ended up getting a soy latte for herself. She thought the time in the semester was perfect for an event like this.
“I think the world can always use more kindness. Giving and receiving random acts of kindness make my day, and especially at this stressful time of the semester,” Van Beek said. “I think they help us to re-focus our energy away from the stress of finals and projects and papers and gain some perspective on our lives.”
Although many requests were easy to fulfill, some took more work.
“Someone had a meeting for work, and we went and talked to their boss and got the meeting cancelled,” Missurelli said. “And then we asked their boss, ‘Well, what would make your day since you cancelled the meeting?’ He said black tea. So we went to the Loft, and the Loft gave us black tea for him.”
This is not the first or the last time Lang and Missurelli will attempt to brighten people’s days.
“The next upcoming one is on Valentine’s day,” Missurelli said. “It’s called Spread The Love, where students make Valentine cards for other students, and they’re randomly distributed.”
*Zach Lang is employed by TommieMedia as an ad sales rep.