Little Tokens, Big Ripples
Small acts of recognition that remind people they are more than their roles. You don’t need anything to begin.
Just notice someone today and give them a handmade keepsake.
Pick, personalize, give
A handmade token gives you a reason to stop, ask someone’s name, and leave them with a few words they can keep.
The Ripple Station™ is an invitation for people to take a token, personalize it, and give it to someone whose work often disappears into the background: the person pouring your coffee, stocking the shelf, delivering your dinner, or helping your children cross the street.
The token is an excuse to practice noticing the person behind the role.
THE RIPPLE STATION™
Why the station exists
I’ve personally given more than 3,000 handmade tokens to people in the last eight years.
In August 2025, I created the first Ripple Station™ outside my home in Los Altos—an experiment in what might happen if the giving no longer depended on me, but could be carried by a community.
In its first year, neighbors took nearly 1,000 tokens to personalize and give to someone whose work might otherwise disappear into the background: a crossing guard, delivery driver, librarian, restaurant server, nurse, grocery clerk, or custodian.
Someone whose work quietly holds our lives together.
This Station gave my neighbors a way to participate in the practice of noticing.
BE THE RIPPLE
How it works
Think of someone you routinely overlook: a barista, a crossing guard, a grocery clerk, anyone you say thank you to but don’t know their name.
Pick a handmade token intentionally for them. Each token is different and an original work of art.
The next time you see them, ask their name. Write it on the back of the token with a few words meant specifically for them. Some examples:
deaR MaRiA, tHaNk You foR tHe KinDnEss You sHow PeOplE evErY dAy.Dear JamEs, I aPPreciAte thE wAy You maKe evErYone feeL weLcomE.Give it to them.
Come back. Repeat.
Received a token?
Someone saw you today—beyond your function, beyond your role.
That is the whole practice.
If you would like to tell me what it felt like to receive something handmade from a stranger, I always welcome hearing from you.
Visit a Station
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The Original Station
The first Station sits beside my mailbox in a quiet Los Altos neighborhood.
I fill it with approximately 30 tokens every week in various styles: watercolor, mixed media, monoprints. Neighbors take them, add their own words, and carry them into encounters I may never witness.
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The Sweet Shop Station
The community-held Station is at the Sweet Shop: 994 Los Altos Avenue
Los Altos, CaliforniaIts tokens begin as large pieces of art made collaboratively during community gatherings. They are cut up into individual tokens for people to personalize and give away.
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The Mobile Station
The Mobile Station carries the practice beyond a single neighborhood.
Tokens made by one community travel to another, allowing recognition to move between people who may never meet. The Station has been built with support from a Generalist World Greenhouse grant.
Media coverage
How this began
I wasn’t trying to begin a practice.
In 2017, I asked my neighbors for unwanted ceramic tiles. Hundreds arrived. I painted the two-inch backsplash discards, turned them into magnets, and piled them onto oven trays so my three-year-old daughter and I could give them to the shopkeepers and restaurant owners in our downtown.
Those tiles were our first tokens of gratitude—small handmade thank-yous for the people who helped make our everyday lives possible.
Once we had begun giving away what we made, my daughter started to see that possibility everywhere.
A few months later, we were doodling while waiting for our food at a Thai restaurant. She looked at what we had made and asked, “Can we give it to our server?”
So we did.
I wrote a note on the back and handed it to him. What I expected to be a quick thank-you became a fifteen-minute conversation about his nephew’s allergies and the ways we carry worry for the people we love.
Nothing extraordinary had been required of us. We had made something, noticed someone, and handed it across the space between us.
I could do that again.
So I did.
The tiles became small pieces of art on wood, canvas, and paper. The materials kept changing. The impulse didn’t: notice someone and make that noticing tangible.
You don’t need a Station to begin.
You need only to notice the person already in front of you.
I’ve been handing out mixed media tokens for eight years now. More than 3,000 tokens have opened up just as many conversations. Most of these moments aren’t photographed or written down. I’m usually just there—in the conversation, in the exchange, in whatever that person needs that minute to be.
What I keep noticing is that people rarely react to the object itself. They react to being recognized personally.
These tokens are small. What they open is not.
TOKEN TALES
What stays
From time to time, I reflect on these exchanges. I call them Token Tales. Vignettes of brief interactions showcasing the powerful ripple effects of these little tokens.
Help carry it forward
The Station is community-held by design. There are several ways to help the practice continue:
Make tokens at the Sweet Shop
Join a community session at the Sweet Shop. There are opportunities for children and adults to create collaborative sheets that are then cut into individual tokens for the Station.
Suggest a location
If you know a café, shop, library, or community space where a Ripple Station™ could be thoughtfully tended, I would love to hear what you have in mind.
Support the Stations
Contributions help replenish art materials, keep the existing Stations filled, and bring the Mobile Ripple Station™ into its first community.
Frequently asked questions
Is taking more than one token okay?
Yes, if you intend to give each one away. Please take no more than three at a time. These are handmade rather than mass-produced, and each one carries the time and care of the people who helped make it.
Do you accept tokens made by the community?
The original Station beside my mailbox is filled with tokens I make myself. The Sweet Shop Station works differently: its tokens are created together during community-making sessions. You are welcome to join us.
Is it ok for me to start a Ripple Station™ in my community?
I believe the practice can move outward thoughtfully without losing what makes it personal. Starting it is easy. Sustaining it requires a longer conversation. If you know a community space where a Station could be cared for, replenished, and held with intention, please write to me.
What if someone does not want the token?
That is okay. An unexpected interaction will not feel comfortable to everyone. Respect their answer, wish them a good day, and move on without making the moment mean anything about them—or about yourself. The practice is not measured by the response. It begins with paying attention.
A small painted token, a train conductor named Kader, and a question my daughter couldn't answer for me. A Token Tales story about being seen.