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Meet Our 2022 World Kindness Day Winner
Her name is literally her life; bringing joy and sparkles to so many lives!
You may remember Joy Sparks from our 2022 World Kindness Day campaign as our winner of Australia’s Kindest Person! Joy was nominated for her outstanding contribution to the lives of those around her and was chosen from hundreds of other incredible submissions to be the face of our World Kindness Day campaign, where we highlight the best of our beautiful Black Pepper community.
A retired teacher, Joy transitioned from enriching the lives of children to the lives of those less fortunate and spends much of her time cooking hearty, healthy meals for the homeless, where she serves up to 70 meals each week! During the winter months Joy also likes to volunteer her time by setting up beds and panda packs for her local winter shelter.
Using her skills as a teacher, Joy has tutored many students to whom English is a second language and even took in, and cared for, a refugee who was dying of breast cancer, ensuring her last few months of life were as special as possible by taking her to see the ballet and enjoy beautiful dinners.
A woman of many talents, Joy is also a skilled artist and calls her art “Being Joy”; because when she creates art it brings her peace, happiness, and love. She’s been commissioned a number of times to paint cherished locations and memories of her clients, with her work recently being displayed in her very own solo exhibition.
As we approach World Kindness Day 2023, we sat down with Joy to see where she is now, how being our 2022 winner has impacted her life, and if she had any other special life updates (spoiler alert: we have our first ever Black Pepper couple!!!)
You may remember Joy Sparks from our 2022 World Kindness Day campaign as our winner of Australia’s Kindest Person! Joy was nominated for her outstanding contribution to the lives of those around her and was chosen from hundreds of other incredible submissions to be the face of our World Kindness Day campaign, where we highlight the best of our beautiful Black Pepper community.
A retired teacher, Joy transitioned from enriching the lives of children to the lives of those less fortunate and spends much of her time cooking hearty, healthy meals for the homeless, where she serves up to 70 meals each week! During the winter months Joy also likes to volunteer her time by setting up beds and panda packs for her local winter shelter.
Using her skills as a teacher, Joy has tutored many students to whom English is a second language and even took in, and cared for, a refugee who was dying of breast cancer, ensuring her last few months of life were as special as possible by taking her to see the ballet and enjoy beautiful dinners.
A woman of many talents, Joy is also a skilled artist and calls her art “Being Joy”; because when she creates art it brings her peace, happiness, and love. She’s been commissioned a number of times to paint cherished locations and memories of her clients, with her work recently being displayed in her very own solo exhibition.
As we approach World Kindness Day 2023, we sat down with Joy to see where she is now, how being our 2022 winner has impacted her life, and if she had any other special life updates (spoiler alert: we have our first ever Black Pepper couple!!!)
MEET JOY SPARKS:
What did winning World Kindness Day, last year mean to you? How has it changed your life
So you said that you met your man through World Kindness Day? We want to hear all about it!
Being our World Kindness Day winner has changed Joy’s life, are you ready for it to change yours?
Nominations for Australia & New Zealand’s Kindest Person close Sunday 22nd October.
“We're coming up to the next nominations and it will be on the 22nd of October. And I would just like to encourage all those people that are seeing wonderful things happening in our community to reach out and to nominate someone. I know for me, it was a wonderful surprise that I was nominated and it changed my life completely.
But I think there's a lot of people in our community who are doing things like cooking for neighbours or helping people who are disadvantaged or walking someone's dog; just reach out and put it out there for people and make them feel blessed that they've done what they've done. I encourage you to do that.
There's probably lots of people in our community who are unsung heroes. And I think it would be really great if you have witnessed something or have been on the receiving end of that, that you could nominate these people and just really make them shine.
There's a form that you can fill out and take to Black Pepper [stores], or click the link below so that you can nominate those special people before the 22nd of October.”
- Joy Sparks