December 17th is Acts of Kindness Day at BloggersUnite – Bloggers Unite is part of blogcatalog, a social blog directory that lists blogs by topic.
They call their efforts “an initiative designed to harness the power of the blogosphere to make the world a better place. By challenging bloggers to blog about a particular social cause on a single day, a single voice can be joined with thousands of others to help make a real positive difference…”
I love the idea of committing random and in this case not so random acts of kindness. With this initiative, the idea is to have hundreds of people all over the world offering some moment of kindness and then blogging about it afterwards.
In the spirit of Laura Stockman, the 10-year old girl who is doing 25 things during the month of December in the spirit of the Christmas season, I want to try to do 9 things – the number of days between Dec. 17 and Dec. 25 – ideally one thing each day. Today will be day one instead of day only. I felt as if my ideas on only a couple of days notice were not sufficient enough to make a decent splash if I limited it just to Dec. 17th.
So what to do? This morning after I finished my daily session of prayer and meditation I was seized with excitement and anticipation in coming up with 9 acts of kindness instead of just one to do today. I jotted down the following brainstorm ideas:
- Give a 50.00 gift card to the local supermarket I received as a holiday present from my union at work to a friend who recently lost his job and hasn’t started collecting unemployment yet. He said he has virtually no savings so I know he needs this supermarket gift card much more than I do.
- Set up a candle group at Gratefulness.org/candles for a friend who has been confined to a hospital bed for over a year.
- Bake gingerbread men and bring in for co-workers plus as a holiday gift for the chiropractor’s office when I go for an appt. on Friday.
- Give away a seldom-offered coupon for the Christmas Tree Shop to someone with a large carriage of items who does not have the coupon from the newspaper.
- Try to become a Santa elf for the post office and purchase gifts for someone who sent a letter to Santa through the local post office. Beanelf.org
- Donate toys for a local Toys for Tots holiday gift drive. Cardi’s Furniture stores are accepting items.
- Put a 20.00 bill instead of a single into a Salvation Army kettle outside the supermarket.
- Pay somebody’s gas or drive-through order behind me in line.
- Go visit the 91-year old gentleman I met while walking in the neighborhood on my lunch hour. *** I called his daughter today and he passed away Nov. 28th as well as her husband passing away today. This plan is now modified to me going to her house after work to pick up her late husband’s library materials to return them for her.***
Do you have any other ideas for me to do? I welcome all comments and suggestions and am feeling so inspired to try to extend the Acts of Kindness Day into a whole week!
Related: My blog post at the Sri Chinmoy Centre site about befriending the 91-year old neighbor to my workplace while out walking. A Friendly Reminder
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There are so many posts on this topic about things to do, that I would encourage you to read the Bloggers Unite posts. They are incredible in their depth and reach across the globe.
If you bake, hand out random acts of cookies.
Small stuff: smile, hold the door open, fetch a neighbor’s mail, sweep their path.
I like your blog! I think I’ll tag along for a while. Always nice to meet a fellow book-lover.
Hi CyberCelt (Eileen) and Linda!
Linda – not only are we fellow book-lovers but we’re both “girls” on a road 🙂
CyberCelt I will surely take your advice! The part of this effort that is a little different for me is that for the last 20 something years I have been focusing my hopes for a better world channeled through prayer and meditation. Inner acts of charity perhaps?
Wishing you both peace during the holiday season!
Update – today I found out that no post office near where I live and work offers the opportunity to read and buy gifts that children send to Santa Claus c/o the North Pole. I’ve scratched that idea off my list.
Today I created a candle group. Yesterday when I picked up library books to return for a woman’s just deceased husband, we sat together and reminisced and she really appreciated having one less thing to deal with in the wake of her husband’s passing.
Hi Brad at DIY Biography,
You asked about what I plan to do next over at my bloggers unite post about Acts of Kindness Day. This is an excellent question! I am already thinking about what I can do to incorporate this perspective more permanently into my awareness. I am somewhat new to working with the public in my job so I am trying to be more conscious of the little things – paying someone a sincere compliment, offering a friendly hello, trying to be helpful with their needs. Truth to tell, when I started catching a cold yesterday I realized that I have to be good to myself as well in order to really be of service to the world around me.
Update – Yesterday I gave a supermarket gift card to my recently unemployed friend. This morning (I’m not counting this but it’s kind of in the same spirit) I gave a Christmas gift for the first time to the handyman who cuts my grass, shovels my walk and rakes my leaves. Then after I got to work I gave a check for Bucks for Books. a charitable effort to save the library where I work from losing its certification due to big budget cuts. Also, I started baking gingerbread cookies last night and got a little slowed down when I didn’t have any flour to help with rolling them out. Will buy that tonight on the way home from work…
Dear Sharani, how I admire your kindness! I feel that those who become so energized to plan and fulfill acts of kindness are God’s special angels. Inspired by you, I have lit two candles at gratefulness.org.
Merry Christmas Michael! Now that I have found a community center in the town where I live that took the winter coats, mittens and hats that I bought plus some food (it has a food pantry too) I plan to regularly bring items there. Even though my own job security is less than it used to be, I feel I should give all the more as long as I’m able.
Sharani, I like your ideas of daily acts of kindness. I really enjoyed the light a candle website. Such a simple idea but quite powerful. I think I will try some of your other ideas too.
Prayers in action have a transforming power and it sounds like you are already experiencing a blessing from them too.
Hope you have a wonderful new year!
Hi Sandra,
I’m so happy to share the candle site with as many people as possible. I felt lucky to learn of it and hope many others can be touched by its inspiration.
I am all agreement with you about the power of prayer. I humbly try to feel closer to God and to feel blessed when I reach out to see and feel
God in my fellow human beings, animals, nature…
Happy New Year to you too!