Smile!

“Would you like a sweet? Would you like a free sweet?” The words that filled my afternoon. My school was hoping to make the local town smile and I was doing my part.

Let me explain. My school has these things called ‘Focus Days’ which are basically a term’s worth of PSHE crammed into one day. Quite often they can be very boring (a day of revision techniques or a day of teachers talking at you) but they’ve gradually been getting better and today was one of the best. Well, the afternoon was.

After a morning of listening to a philosophical talk, we were let loose in the town. Some people helped at one of the local primary schools, some helped at the local Pilgrims Hospice and more still helped at a local wildlife organisation. My slot was fairly short so I went to help where all the action was radiating from: the town centre. Here, street art and music commenced and I offered out sweets and badges to try and make people smile.

Despite the offer of free sweets, I had more people decline than actually take a sweet. It was mainly the older people in the town or younger people in larger groups that took a sweet. Although I did have one old lady try and give me money! However, most people were not this nice and one guy who looked about 19 told me “I don’t take sweets from strangers!” I expect he thought he was ‘cool’ but I’d like to think he was alone in his opinion.

Of the people who took sweets and badges, there were two people handing out some sort of leaflet. Their presence may have caused us to be avoided a little more but they seemed nice. The guy took a couple of badges and actually wore them. He also recognised me when I walked past later on my way home, complimenting my smile. I’m hoping that saying I have “the nicest smile in the whole wide world” was a genuine compliment and not at all implied in any form of creepy way!

Eventually, we handed out most of the sweets and I headed off to the RSPCA cattery. There they had some of the cutest cats and kittens and we got to play with them. The time flew by and after what seemed like no time at all, it was the end of the day; back to school for Jazz Band and the return of normality.

DFTBA, Terrie, I have not forgotten.