A big-hearted band of buddies from North Wales have turned a dangerous online drinking game on its head.
Instead of taking part in NekNomination, the internet craze which sees people dare each other to down potentially lethal levels of booze, they’ve started a new phenomenon, RakNomination – or random acts of kindness.
The group of friends who work at the 3 Store mobile phone shop at the Eagles Meadow shopping centre, Wrexham, have been doing nice things for strangers.
Their generous gestures so far include giving a bouquet of flowers to an elderly shopper, presenting a colouring book to a little girl and paying for people’s parking at Eagles Meadow.
3 Store customer service advisor Vicky Tymz explained they were horrified by the NekNomination craze that’s been linked to three deaths and condemned by health professionals.
Vicky said: “We’ve been doing random acts of kindness because it’s better than a NekNomination. So it’s turning something bad into something good. I think the NekNominations are stupid.
“You can either down a pint of rubbish and feel rubbish, or you can do something nice and feel nice. This shows the power of the internet to do good.
Vicky has gone about doing random acts of kindness with great enthusiasm.
She added: “I bought a scratch card and gave it to someone. I don’t know if they won. I bought some Macmillan Cancer Research fobs that you put in a trolley, and I gave those to people who were using them.
“I bought a fairy sticker book and gave it to a little girl. She was really pleased.
“Doing random acts of kindness makes me feel really good. We’re going to do it once a month.”
One recipient of an unexpected act of kindness was Eagles Meadow shopper Nora Atterton, from Wrexham, who received a lovely bunch of flowers.
The emotional retired cleaner said: “It’s made me feel happy and it’s done me good when these lovely people came with the flowers.
“I think these random acts of kindness are wonderful. If my husband was down here he would sing a song.”
Vicky added: “Giving the flowers to Nora was lovely. She’s such a nice lady and it made her day. It made her so happy and she’s going to give one of the flowers to her daughter.”
3 Store customer service advisor Subhash Vaddella added: “Making other people happy has made me feel happy. People don’t expect it. when we gave the flowers to the lady she really felt pleased.
“The little things make a difference and they’re easy to do. It shows that the little things to matter.”
Eagles Meadow Manager Kevin Critchley was bowled over by the idea.
He said: “I think what Vicky and the team at 3 Store are doing is absolutely wonderful. It’s a real peach of an idea that is bringing happiness to a lot of people and it would be brilliant if more people started to do the same thing.”
