Random acts of kindness and scholarship honour Vegas shooting victim Tara Roe

Unusually large tips. Your five-buck caffe latte paid for.The kid's Santa photos paid for. No charge for your oil change.

What's going on?

It turns out a roving band of 16 women, friends of former Okotoks resident Tara Roe, who diedin the October Las Vegas shooting rampage,honoured their late friend's human spirit by going on a rampage of their own a kindness rampage.

Inspired by #honor58

It was all inspired by New York City firefighter Tommy Maher, who launched the #honor58campaign following the shooting.

"We just decided as a group to do our own random acts of kindness in the communities around us," Nevin said on the Calgary Eyeopener.

"And spread some Tara love and just brighten somebody's day behind it."

That started with Nevinpicking up the tab for someone's Santa photos at a shopping mall in Winnipeg in December, then leaving a short note explaining why.

Since then, Nevin said, it's expanded to include everything from picking up the tab for a strangerin a restaurant, to donating money to an animal shelter, to handing out gift cards.

"It was a really dark andsadtime for us andwe just wanted to try to find ways to deal with the grief andloss of Tara," Nevin said.

"She was always wanting to help in the community, and was always doing random acts of kindness herself to strangers without even knowing it so we figured why not try to do something good for Tara? Keep her spirit alive? So that's what we've done."

Scholarship established

While most of the random acts of kindness have been committed in Brandon, Man., where Roe grew up, and in Winnipeg, Nevin and her husband also had a hand in establishing a college scholarship now offered byRobertson College in Calgary to honour Roe.

The Tara Ann Roe Memorial Scholarship is offering up to $15,000 to a single current or prospective student in the school's community support worker program.

Roe, who lived in Okotoks, worked with autistic children in a teacher's assistant program, and was interested in enrolling in Robertson College's community support worker program.

"She was looking into this program," Nevin said.

"So we thought, what better way to reward somebody than to do it in the program she was looking into?"

Nevin'shusband, who works for Robertson College, pitched the idea, which the college agreed to fund in full.

"It's basically for anybody who's going to apply for the community support worker program but all the information is available on the Robertson College website," Nevin said.

"I know it would make her super happy and she would be really proud to see someone doing this program that she was interested in and giving back to their communities andhelping in great ways. It's really special."

• MORE CALGARY NEWS| Calgary's neo-puritanism and the madness of crowds
• MORE CALGARY NEWS| Calgary penguins waddle through the zoo to launch 6th annual penguin walk

With files from theCalgary Eyeopener