My 25th Birthday Celebration

It’s my 25th birthday; I always wanted to do something really special on this day. As the date approached I got so many suggestions from friends, good restaurants, clubs, Vegas Trip and many more, there were so many exciting things do to that it was difficult to pick which one I wanted to pick and attach to me turning 25.
I share my birth month with one of my chines friend who was also turning 25 the same month. We both started getting calls that friends wants to take us out for lunch/ dinner to celebrate. In mid of all these plans for celebration, I happened to watch a TV show on “World Vision” and their way of supporting children. It touched my heart and I got convinced to donate some money to World Vision. Nest day during lunch time I told these things to my friend and she added up by saying that she has a friend who works for world vision. So we planned to visit her the next weekend. We met her and found out the structured way the money goes to then from our hands. And there we both decided that this is the best way to make our birthday special.
Now our target was to collect maximum money and make the best use of them. It was tough especially when we were planning we were planning to use our birthday celebrations for this cause. It was sometimes really difficult to convince friends that they should not take us out for lunch and buy gifts for us, but they should donate that much amount of money to the world vision giving our reference.
Both me and Jennifer were doing this to our friends, some just gave a smile and agreed, at the same time we really had tough time convincing others that too very politely and not making the discussion stressful. We managed to donate collectively around $400. This was the combine effort from me and Jennifer. When we were donating on phone then they said a name to which this money is going to and for what purpose. That was kind of “ok-ok” to us. So mine and Jennifer’s birthday passed and still September has not ended. Last week of Sept. I got a mail from world vision. I opened it and it was a hand written letter. Hand writing was not good and was of a kid. I read through, it was the child who got my money and was thanking me for helping him and his friends by referring so many people to help them. The mail was accompanied by one of his black & White Photograph, he has written my name on a sheet almost like a A4 size sheet and was holding that and posing for the pic.
That was so touching and made me feel so special which I can not describe in words. The day I got this mail was Saturday and the whole weekend I read that letter so many times and every time it made feel special and spread a smile on my lips.
Monday I went to office and my mail box was full of my office friends, they all got a thanks mail from world vision and that made them feel so special that they have the ability to influence somebody’s life to this extent. Whole day people kept calling and sharing their feeling and over all thanking me and Jennifer for such a wonderful way of celebrating birthday and making them a part of it.
It made me feel so nice and special, an almost a month after my birthdate I realized how special my 25th birthday was. Even today going through those thoughts makes me delighted. I will always remember my 25th birthday, I made it a great day in my life.
Thanks to all my friends who helped me, I know many of you were not convinced when I was telling you to donate and you did it just for me. Thanks a lot to all of you….. for making me feel so special and giving a wonderful memory for life long.