Boston Strong Ducks Pay It Forward Around the World

After the deadly Boston Marathon bombings took place last April, Lori Tosches felt helpless. The 50-year-old Boston native, who had grown up cheering on the runners from the starting line as a child and continued the tradition with her husband and three children, wanted to help the victims and their families in some way, but she didn’t know how.

“I was glued to the television, in particular the coverage about an 8-year-old boy named Martin Richard who had died at the finish line,” Tosches tells Yahoo Shine. “After seeing his photo, I couldn’t get him off my mind. He’s what really motivated me to help out.”

Tosches remembered that back in January 2013, just a month after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the police department had decorated the campus with 500 rubber ducks to cheer up the children and welcome them back to classes.

“Since ducks already had a positive association, I thought, ‘Let’s do something with a duck,’” she says. So, Tosches created a Facebook page called Boston Strong Ducks which would serve as a hub for positive updates from the tragedy, and invited her friends to join. “At the time, the phrase ‘Boston Strong’ was popular and I liked the idea of associating it with a rubber duck — you can squish him but he’ll bounce back to shape fast,” she says.

More on Yahoo Shine:Mom and Son Pay It Forward With Daily Good Deeds

Then it was time to spread the word. Tosches, a stay-at-home mom, ordered 60 ducks from an online retailer for 83 cents a piece and, with a Sharpie, she wrote, “Boston Strong Ducks” on the front of each duck and the group's Facebook address on the bottom. “My husband and I went to a memorial at the starting line of the race in [the Boston suburb] Hopkinton and scattered the ducks around to encourage people to join the page,” she says. “With so much bad news at the time, I wanted people to know there was a place to feel happy.”

More on Yahoo:Boston Marathon Charity Donations Rise a Year After Bombing

Within days, the Boston Strong Ducks page was flooded with friend requests from people who had seen the ducks and wanted one of their own. So Tosches ordered a few dozen more, outfitted them each with a tag that read, “I’m a Boston Strong Duck. I’m spreading good karma. No random act of kindness is too small or ever wasted. Please pay it forward,” and mailed them out.

The orders continued to flood in and Tosches' endeavors were getting expensive, so she talked to her family and they decided to dig into their vacation fund to Disney World to defray the cost of the shipments. To cover future orders and shipping fees, Tosches decided to charge $5 per duck.

Then, something even more amazing happened: Tosches started receiving emails from people who had received their ducks and had taken the "pay it forward" instructions to heart. “Each proved that they had paid it forward by sending photos of their good deeds,” she says.

For example, one person had left a duck on the windowsill of an ill neighbor; another bought a co-worker lunch and put it on his desk along with a duck. One person bought a brownie for a fellow patron at a Panera Bread location and purposely left the duck at the cash register; another taped a duck and some cash on a coin machine at the Museum of Science in Boston.  

“I’ve received emails from people in nine different countries. Someone sent a photo of a duck they left on a table at a café in Switzerland with a glass of wine purchased for a customer,” Tosches recounts. “Since I’ve only mailed the ducks within the United States, I’m so happy to know people are paying it forward abroad.” She also created a Boston Strong Ducks fan page so people can upload photos and share proof of their good deeds.

Tosches doesn’t make a profit on the ducks and donates a dollar from each order to victims or their family members. When she heard that a runner had lost his leg in the tragedy and posted on the Boston Strong Ducks Facebook page that his young son was having a tough time coping, Tosches used some of proceeds to mail the boy a package of toys, naming him “duck ambassador.”

This year, at the Boston Marathon on April 20, Tosches and her family will cheer on the runners, ducks in tow. "I'm doing what I love," she says, "and have no plans to stop."

More on Yahoo Shine:
Boston Marathon Bombing Couple Says 'I Do'
The Amazing Progress Two Boston Marathon Bombing Victims Have Made
7-Eleven Clerk Who Lost Job Over Good Deed Gets a Better Offer