Write a note, Give a Smile on Giving Tuesday

Write a note, Give a Smile on Giving Tuesday (December 3)

I am so excited to announce my Giving Tuesday plans! I hope you will join me this year for the 4th “Write a Note, Give A Smile”

The past 3 years over 9,000 participated in giving and spreading words of encouragement and smiles around the world! I hope you will join this year on December 3rd

My plan:

Write encouraging notes and send “smiles” on December 3rd

Why?

Because there are so many people right now that could use some kindness

What you need:

*Paper

*Writing Utensil

*Smile (make your own or print for free here)

*Envelope/Stamp (optional)

Free printable sheets: Draw A Picture & Write A Note

Ideas of who to send it to:

Family, friends, teacher, neighbor, health care worker, neighbor, mail carrier

Who can participate?

Anyone! All ages! Individual, families, classrooms! Let’s spread lots of kindness and smiles together!

Please sign up below and spread the word! Will send you a reminder email and free printables!

Give a Smile on Giving Tuesday! Join me November 28

I am so excited to announce my Giving Tuesday plans! I hope you will join me this year for the 3nd “Write a Note, Give A Smile”

The past 2 years over 6,000 participated in giving and spreading words of encouragement and smiles around the world! I hope you will join this year on November 28

My plan:

Write encouraging notes and send “smiles” on November 29

Why?

Because there are so many people right now that could use some kindness

What you need:

*Paper

*Writing Utensil

*Smile (make your own or print for free here)

*Envelope/Stamp (optional)

Free printable sheets: Draw A Picture & Write A Note

Ideas of who to send it to:

Family, friends, teacher, neighbor, health care worker, neighbor, mail carrier

Who can participate?

Anyone! All ages! Individual, families, classrooms! Let’s spread lots of kindness and smiles together!

Please sign up below and spread the word! Will send you a reminder email and free printables!

New this year:

3 participating classes will win a box of goodies from me!

1 Participating school will receive a BUDDY BENCH thanks to POLYWOOD!

Happy World Smiles Day: Give a Smile on Giving Tuesday! My Giving Tuesday Plans for November 29

I am so excited to announce my Giving Tuesday plans! I hope you will join me this year for the 2nd “Write a Note, Give A Smile”

Last year over 4,000 participated in giving and spreading words of encouragement and smiles around the world!

See recap

My plan:

Write encouraging notes and send “smiles” on November 29

Why?

Because there are so many people right now that could use some kindness

What you need:

*Paper

*Writing Utensil

*Smile (make your own or print for free here)

*Envelope/Stamp (optional)

*New this year printable sheets: Draw A Picture & Write A Note

Ideas of who to send it to:

Family, friends, teacher, neighbor, health care worker, neighbor, mail carrier

Who can participate?

Anyone! All ages! Individual, families, classrooms! Let’s spread lots of kindness and smiles together!

Please sign up below and spread the word! Will send you a reminder email and free printables!

See my intro video below!

Write a note, Give a Smile: My Giving Tuesday Plans! Hope you Join Me November 30

I am so excited to announce my Giving Tuesday plans! I hope you will join me this year!

My plan:

Write encouraging notes and send “smiles” on November 30

Why?

Because there are so many people right now that could use some kindness

What you need:

*Paper

*Writing Utensil

*Smile (make your own or print for free here)

*Envelope/Stamp (optional)

Ideas of who to send it to:

Family, friends, teacher, neighbor, health care worker, neighbor, mail carrier

Who can participate?

Anyone! All ages! Individual, families, classrooms! Let’s spread lots of kindness and smiles together!

Please sign up below and spread the word!

There will be a zoom at 4pm EST or a Day of Video to watch/show

Printable Flyer

See my intro video below!

Meeting ID: 719 0085 5459

Passcode: 0c11Gk

I have a PODCAST!!

Hey guys,

I am super excited because I have a new pocast called Sammie Smiles!

You can listen to it on my website or on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and Youtube

It is a weekly podcast and is aimed to inspire and leave guests and listeners smiling.

I hope you will give it a listen and let me know what you think. My mom says to ask you to rate and comment on Apple Podcast and please subscribe to all if you can as you will be notified when new episodes post.

I am really excited about this and being able to share

I even composed the intro music myself!

Look at this awesome Podcast Cover Art done by my friend Talithia Shipman

Changing the World🌎

If you want to change the world but you don't know How or what you can do, just read the rest of this.

You need to ask yourself what your passionate about. If you don't know the answer to that Just simply ask yourself "what breaks my heart." It could be in a good way or even a bad way. What breaks my heart is to seeing people lonely and bullied, well actually there are a lot of things that break my heart, but for now I will choose loneliness. Your next step is to take action and do something about it.

To help you get started, if any of these projects that I am about to mention sound fun to you than go ahead and do them. You can do a Buddy Bench Project. I collected plastic bottle caps and lids and had them recycled into Buddy Benches. Send Smiles, all you have to do is write an encouraging letter to someone. I like to do it in the mail but you can also do it by Email. Notes to the Nursing Home, for this one you can just put something nice on a piece of paper and bring them to a near by Nursing Home. The reason I think that one is important is because they need something to brighten up there day since they cant go out any were. I hope this encourages you to change the world, big or small!

Have a great day and stay safe!

This is me with a Buddy Bench made out of recycled plastic caps

This is me getting ready to send a smile in the mail

This is me getting ready to give cards to a near by Nursing Home

Astronauts and Giving Tuesday

This year Astronauts Day fell on the same day as Giving Tuesday Now! That day me and 2 other amazing girls got to be apart of some awesome things.

This year Giving Tuesday Now fell on May 5th. Giving Tuesday Now is a day for you to give back or just give for the joy of it. I am apart of Giving Tuesday Kid Leaders and I did a project for Giving Tuesday! The week of May 5th was Teachers Appreciation Week and I wanted to let ALL of the teachers at my school that they are appreciated!!! So, to go with my Sending Smiles Project I sent all of the teachers a smile with an appreciation letter. I sent some through Email because that is what they wanted, but that is great too. All of the teachers have done so much for me so I wanted to give back to them. Giving Tuesday is an awesome group and I encourage you to give to anyone that you feel needs it.

Astronauts Day was a very educational day for me! I got to see 2 FaceBook Lives and 1 Zoom with Astronauts answering questions. The first one was Astro Clay and he has written some books that tells you his experience in Space!!! He also gave me the call name “Prez.” He gave me that call name because he told me to go straight to president! The second one was Leroy, he did an awesome Q and A and answered mine and the other GT kids first. He also answered a few other questions that I had along with my siblings! For the last one I did a Zoom with Dottie. she gave a great presentation all about her experience in space. She explained so much and gave me and a TON of other people a great education on Space. Did you know that a sun set in space only lasts about 3 and a half minutes in space? Well now you do! I got to ask my question out loud, not in the chat box, to her, same with the 2 other awesome girls!

May 5th was an awesome, educational and very tiring day all in one! I hope this encourages you to give back! You guys are awesome!!! Have a great day and stay safe.

Happy Earth Day!!!🌎

Hey guys its Sammie and it is also Earth Day. Make sure that you take the reason of this day an apply it to your everyday life. Always remember to recycle and help keep this earth beautiful because its what you live in!

For Earth Day, my mom helped me make a few wonderful collage’s of everyone that made an earth out of something. On my social media i posted about making a world out of something, from caps to drawings, for anyone that wanted to. By the end we ended up getting 25 people and 6 continents. It was awesome.

I was just on a Shore Buddies YouTube video. It was a lot of fun getting interviewed be Malte, the host. If you don’t know what Shore Buddies are, they are fuzzy stuffed animals made out of plastic water bottles. Not caps. Press “here” to get the link to the video.

I was also in the News Paper today for Earth Day, I just gave tips on how to make this world more Eco friendly. It was also a lot of fun getting interviewed for that! I want to put together a small magazine that has inspiring people that I want to interview in it.

Have a great day, bye.

These are some of my Worlds!

The big Earth Day collage!

This is me with Sammy the Seal. I just got 3 more today so I can do cap art of them.

What I've Been Doing 😃

Hey its me Sammie and I thought it would be fun to write a blog.

So lately I have been playing outside a lot and doing school work. You know me, I like school. Since school is canceled now I’ve been sad because I miss my friends, my teacher, and learning in a classroom. But luckily I have still been learning at home.

I miss seeing the buddy benches being used, but I found a new way to spread kindness, called Sending Smiles!!! Sending smiles is just were I send an encouraging letter with a laminated smile in the mail to someone everyday. Some people have even writing back to me. The main goal of this project is to put smiles on peoples faces. If you want a smile, let me know!!! I encourage you to send smiles too.

Like a lot of other people I have been doing Zoom meetings. I have been doing Zoom with groups like: Helping Ninjas, She’s The Universe, Giving Tuesday kids, and Kindness Matters. I have also been doing some podcasts, one of them is Buneke

I have also been writing articles, one of them is for Boldly U.

During this time I have also been drawing with Mark Kistler, I have learned a lot of new techniques from him. I draw live everyday at 1:00 pm. with him. Talking about drawing or being creative, I have done a lot of Side Walk Chalk and Cap Art.

If you want to here more about whats going on in my life, I will try to blog more and you can watch my cap talk lives on face book or follow me on Instagram.

Thanks for reading. Bye!!!

These are my Smiles, I am trying to send one to every state

Side Walk Chalk Smiles

one of my drawings

Zooming with Shes The Universe

Hey, were still 6 feet apart

Alexa Curtis surprise visit!

Hi everyone its Sammie and the other day Alexa Curtis surprised me in the middle of an interview I was doing. And I honestly was so surprised and excited. She is an awesome person and she is really nice. It was so much fun hanging out with her and Julian. It is super neat because she came all the way from warm L.A. to cold Fort Wayne to meet me! She says that I inspire her but she inspires me. She gave me an early birthday present and everything that was inside of it was super cool!!! So it was a super fun time and I am so happy that I got to meet her and even got to introduce her to the best chocolates (Debrands). The sad part is that she has to leave soon, I wish she could stay longer. But it was so fun to meet her! Now I’ll just have to go out to LA to hang out with her! Alexa thank you and I hope we can stay in touch! After all you are my older sister now(; I love that we both Live Fearless Everyday!

Have a great day!!!

Alexa Curtis and I on the Buddy Bench

Me in between 2 amazing women (Julian Teekaram and Alexa Curtis) Buddies for life

Selfie of course!

Happy World Kindness Day!!!

Hi everyone, Happy World Kindness Day. I hope that you are having a great day and you have done something kind. I know that you can do it, you can do anything no matter what the day may bring. Kindness you should bring!

A few people that are kind to me are Ms. Grotemat, Ms. Hargrove, Mr.R, Mr. Sleesman, and Mrs. Sleesman. and all of the other people that have been kind to me. They are kind because, they help me when i need help and they are always there for me. they are DEFINITELY some of the best teachers ever! a few other people that are kind to me are my friends Ali, Ce’azia, and Khin. They are also always there for me and help me when i need it. They are great friends to have. I am blessed with many friends.

So, if they can be kind than you can. REMEMBER, its good to be kind. you can do anything no matter what the day may bring. Kindness you should bring. I hope its you desire to speak out and inspire!

Happy Kindness Day!!!

Back To School 2019

Hello! Sorry I have not posted for a while. School just started and I have been busy.

I am still getting caps sent to me from all different places. And now, even more places are collecting caps for buddy benches to.

It was recently Haley Elementary schools 50th birthday, and also the 50th day of school. they opened the time-capsule and there were so many cool things in there. They are going to put a newspaper of me doing the buddy bench project at my school in the time-capsule. So when they open it in the next 25 years they will take it out and people will be able to see what was happening 25 years ago. I hope that the buddy benches will still be in use in 25 years? I sure hope so!

HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!

Newspaper that will go in the Time Capsule!

International Jugglers Association (IJA)😀🤹‍♀️

Hi, today i will be talking about the highlight of my summer!!!

In the past week I have been at the IJA, watching shows or practicing juggling. Yes, I did learn how to juggle!

The past president of IJA (Bill Barr) found a video of my pen pal Justin visiting me in Fort Wayne to see the Buddy Benches at my school. He was excited because the IJA convention was coming to Fort Wayne. He loved what I was doing and was inspired by the kindness, buddy benches and recycling. He asked if I would speak at their benefit show. And then he and the IJA committee decided to name an award after me and I would be the first recipient. Now every year someone will get the “International Jugglers Association Sammie Vance Youth Civic Achievement Award.”

On Tuesday night, Bill and a few other jugglers presented the award to me up on the stage of the Embassy. It is a very cool award!!! I also gave a speech that night.

That morning I also gave a speech at the Boys and Girls Club for the Benefit show. I also did a workshop a few days later to explain the Buddy Bench project and try to inspire others to make a difference. I had plastic caps for the jugglers to try to juggle and they did! They even juggled the caps around me.

I had a few people teach me how to juggle. Bennett was one of my favorites. He showed me how to use juggling balls ans rings. Rings are my favorite.🤹‍♀️ I also got to meet Jon Wee, he is a cool guy! He was a finalist on America’s Got Talent. He gave me and my siblings some tips.

This was an awesome group of people. I hope I can come next year.

It was a really fun week. I will never forget it! Here are some pictures. Be back soon, I have to practice juggling(;

This is a picture of Jon Wee, Tuey Wilson and me.

(Jon Wee, Me, Tuey Wilson)

this is Bill Barr and me and my award

my award

Bennett teaching me the rings

David Cain showed me how to bounce juggle

they collected caps for me (we will be giving them to the Boys and Girls Club because they are doing project now!!) The IJA gave me a check so that they will be able to get their buddy bench for free!

me and some of the jugglers at the Boys and Girls Club

I made the paper!

Mom and I at our Workshop “Dream It Do It- Inspiring Others”

Giving my speech at the Embassy Theater after receiving my award! The lights were really bright

Justin and Me!!!

Yesterday and today my pen pal from LA came (Justin.) His letter was was in the photo in the blog, Letters from all over!! Any way, he came over and I finally got to meet him. Today we went to Science Central, it was a lot of fun! We also went to a popular hot dog place Coney Island and the best chocolate place Debrands. Yesterday, Justin, his little brother (Tyler), and his mom and dad, got to go to John’s class, Dannie’s class, and my class. I likes showing him my school. At night we painted canvas.

Oh yeah, if you don’t know who Justin is, he is doing the buddy bench in LA, California. He flew 2,162 miles to get here. He came here to see the buddy bench, and he liked it a lot. He just got enough plastic caps collected for his Buddy Bench and will be getting it soon! He loves turning trash into treasure! And he loves frogs! It was a lot of fun having him here to visit! I will never forget it!

Greeting Justin and his family at the hotel

this is one of a million selfies that we took together.

Trying to get each other not to laugh

Finished artwork

This is the crazy group at Debrands

A look back at 2018

2018 Was a great year and it went by really fast! Below I will go by month of some great things that happened and how I felt about them. I am happy to have met so many awesome people and have received so many letters I will keep forever! Enjoy a look back at my past year with the Buddy Bench Project. Mom helped me a bit with typing this.

January: Photo shoot and in Glo Magazine as February’s Glo Girl! (It was so fun! I loved meeting Sue)

February: Met the Mayor of Fort Wayne (got to sit at his desk! It was really cool. He said I might be the first female mayor someday!) People say I could be Leslie Knope

Got cap from 50th state! Massachusetts! (It took awhile to get the caps from all the US states but I loved getting letters and caps from so many places)

March: Mayor visited my school and sat on the Buddy Bench! (He also gave me a Certificate of Excellence in front of my class! He is the best Mayor ever)

Humankind and USA Today posted a nice video of me and it got over 1.2 million views. (this was the first of about 8 videos that covered me that went viral this year. very crazy!)

Articles online about me from Biggby’s, Babble and Her View From Home

April: Now This Her Video posted on Social Media (Reese Witherspoon tweeted about it!)

Upworthy Article online. Brought schools caps to get them started! Filmed for a day for 60 Sec Doc video.

May: Local NBC morning show (had to wake up at 5 am!) Article in Local Newspaper News Sentinel

Traveled to NYC to be on Today Show with Kathie Lee! Mom had to tell me who Kathie Lee was. She was very nice. I wasn’t nervous at all and had a lot of fun. She wrote me a song and actress Olivia Edwards sang it to me. I got to go to a Broadway Show (School of Rock)! We walked everywhere we went.

ATTN: We Need This video posted (18 million views)

June: Received letters from a school in Mexico which is really cool because I am learning Spanish!

Helped Jury Pool get started with their Buddy Bench cap collection.

Went parasailing for the first time!

Article in Martha Stewart Living

Inspired a group in India to collect caps and make Buddy Benches(:

July: Spoke to over 100 Walgreens managers who are collecting caps for me all summer long.

Excited to be Stephanie Arne’s first Girl in the Wild

Filmed for Sustainable Thinkers video.

Reached 2,000 members on my FB page

August: Got asked to be a part of the BTV (Be the Voice) Anti Bullying campaign in Atlanta GA!

Featured in Highlights of the Week

Wrote a book (hoping next year it will be published)

First Day of 4th grade (I love school!!!)

September: Radio Show! It was really cool. It was my first radio show. The Mic was really big.

Traveled down to Green Tree Plastics to see 75 yellow Buddy Benches ready to be delivered to Indiana Schools thanks to the 15,000 lbs of plastic caps Walgreen’s saved for me over the summer! Such a great day! Plus Green Tree surprised me with a bench of my very own! And a dolphin made of caps that I named Caperie

October: Lots of thank you letters from Indiana Schools!

Inspired a school in Australia to do the project! (It’s cool because this is going around the world!!)

Mentioned on Bobby Bones show for TMSG

Got an amazing literary agent Vicki at Storm Literary Agency

November: Comet of the Month for my class at school

Traveled to Staten Island to film Video for UPS Wishes Delivered! (I met so many cool friends at Academy of St. Dorothy and the filming crew)

Turned 10!

December: Featured in B Uneke magazine Amazing Kids Edition

Started this Blog!

PBS Kids article

Featured on Sodexo Performance Zone poster in 800 schools. (also given a check for $500 that I was able to donate to 2 schools so they could get Buddy Benches)

UPS Wishes Delivered Video went live with over 6 Million Views! (It turned out really cool! Watch it if you haven’t already. Worth all the work)

I had a really good year and I am so glad you all are a part of it.

Can’t wait to see what next year holds!!

But for 2018 THAT’S A WRAP!

My Christmas!

Hi guys, I don’t know about you but I had an AWESOME Christmas! My favorite present was my very own Alexa Dot. I like listening to songs on her and asking her questions! I also got a lot of other gifts that were great! I also had a good Christmas Eve. Our family went to a movie theater and watched Mary Poppins Returns, it was a really good movie! I hope you all had a good Christmas Eve and Christmas.

I hope you all have a great New Year. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Me with my sister and brothers!

Letters from all over!!

I have gotten letters from schools from states from countries and from here and there and everywhere. I cant keep track of all the letters, there’s way to many! In the mail out the door there are letters everywhere! there’s letters to me and letters from you! LETTERS LETTERS and more LETTERS!

I have gotten letters from pretty much everywhere. now i have a ton of pen pals, and they are from all over the world!

I love getting letters!!

These are some of my letters from some of the 75 schools I was able to give buddy benches to in September! I love that the Buddy Benches are working!

Letters from my pen pals in California! Justin and Ryan(:

Cap Poem!

Caps are here Caps are there

Caps Caps everywhere

Caps in my hair Caps stuck on my clothes

Caps from Cities Caps from States

Caps from you Caps from me

Caps are in my dreams

Filling Drums Sorting Caps

Day after Day more Caps more Caps i see

It makes me Happy Yippee!!!

I Love School!

I love school because I like to learn. It makes me heart broken when I hear that some people cant. I am happy that I get to go to school! If I could l would go to school every day of the year, except for Christmas day! That is how much I LOVE school! School makes me happy!

School is the BEST.

Got to go I have to go to school!

One Of My Inspirations: Malala Yousafzai

One of my biggest inspirations is Malala Yousafzai. Malala inspires me because, she also is all about kindness kind of like me. Malala also says that young people can change the world. I just think that Malala is a really cool person. If you don’t know a lot about Malala check her out on google, type in Malala Yousafzai, and there is a lot of info on there. I love school and hopefully other people do to!

Malala is amazing