Vol. 2: Magical Acts of Kindness
Memorial Day weekend will live on in the minds of over 300 Wizard Rock and Harry Potter fans as the weekend that brought Wrockstock 2008. However, there was a lot more to Wrockstock than just the music (important and amazing as it all was). Those in attendance were given the special privilege of hearing Andrew Slack, founder of the Harry Potter Alliance, announce a few brand new campaigns that the HP Alliance was preparing to launch. One of these that just came to fruition in its full form is Magical Acts of Kindness.
Magical Acts of Kindness (MAK) is headed by Jess and Lauren, two amazing girls who decided that February 2008 (a leap year) was the perfect time to have “Be Awesome” Month. The idea was for participants to perform an act of awesome once a day, even if it was something small like smiling at a stranger or holding the door for the person behind them. On the 29th, bigger acts were to be done. In fact, some participants held fund raisers for their favorite charities on that day. To be fair, the fact that “Be Awesome” Month existed was probably one of the most awesome things to happen that month.
Around the same time as “Be Awesome” Month was happening, Andrew Slack decided that it would be cool to have a Harry Potter Alliance campaign to support doing kind acts. He jumped on the opportunity and asked Jess and Lauren to lead the campaign.
MAK is a bit different from “Be Awesome” Month, however. Instead of it lasting just a month, MAK is set to just keep on going and going and going. I figure the best way to describe it is to use the words of Lauren:
“This project is not about grand gestures, raising lots of money to help people in faraway places you will never visit. While it can be great to take this sort of action sometimes – something the HPA is very interested in doing, as demonstrated in our Save Darfur project – we think it is equally important to take time to look after our own communities, on a smaller scale.”
I feel like this is the heart of the campaign. Many activists spend so much time focusing on what is far away that they lose sight of what is right in front of them. This certainly isn’t to say that MAK is only for activists. In fact, Lauren and Jess want to see anyone and everyone posting their adventures and observations . “We’re hoping that by sharing stories on here, we can all inspire and encourage each other to make some positive gestures in our everyday lives.”
So here is my own personal challenge to Wizard Rockers and Wizard Rock fans:
Help me find current Wrock music that inspires good deeds. For those who are musically inclined, write a song about good deeds in the Harry Potter books. I would love to get a good list of these songs and see if Lauren and Jess were able to post them (or at least links to them) on the MAK site.
I can’t wait to see the progress this campaign makes! As Lauren said, “If more people focused on the positive rather than the negative, imagine how much better our lives could be.”
Thank you to those who contacted me with upcoming Wizard Rock events! I am still (and always will be) looking for more events in the future. You all are amazing!
‘Til next time,
Dinah Saur
Previous editions of Straight from the Dinah Saur’s Mouth are available here. You can contact Dinah via email at WrockDinahSaur@gmail.com
