“NO ACT OF KINDNESS, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, IS EVER WASTED.” – Aesop
In honor of Random Acts of Kindness Day, below is a list of 20 ideas of how to celebrate the day and continue celebrating beyond today.
- Start very simply: Text a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while and remind them that they are awesome.
- Find a volunteer opportunity using VolunteerMatch.
- The Blood Donor App alerts you when there’s a shortage or need for your blood type in your area and connects you with local blood drives.
- Leave a kind comment.
- Alternatively, resist the urge to leave a snarky one. Sometimes it’s kind to just roll your eyes and keep scrolling!
- Download the Karmic app, which will assign you an easy act of kindness every day.
- Times are tough and a lot of people are out of work. Write a LinkedIn recommendation for a friend, colleague, or former intern or mentor to help them get back on their feet.
- Therapist and author Jennie Marie Battistin recommends making your neighbors and anyone driving or walking by happy in a simple, creative way. “Create seven lawn signs with kind thoughts or uplifting messages,” she says. “Place a new one in your yard each day to brighten up your neighbors’ week.”
- Help an ill or elderly neighbor with yard work. Weed your neighbor’s garden or mow the lawn. Live in a colder climate? Shovel or snow-blow their driveway and sidewalk.
- Share a GoFundMe on social media.
- Peruse the petitions on Care2 and sign ones that resonate with you.
- Be bold and compliment a stranger! “So often it is shyness that keeps us from offering a compliment to a stranger. We notice but are too timid to speak. A woman who passes us, for instance, wearing a color that brings her alive ‘That color is stunning on you,” Margaret Dulaney, founder of ListenWell.org, recommends. “We notice these things, but too often keep them to ourselves. I would suggest we share these good noticings. They have a great power to lift.”
- Share or re-post a friend’s cause or business.
- Call a lonely relative and tell them a dad joke.
- Secretly pay for the next person in line at your favorite coffee shop.
- Driving or biking somewhere? Meeting a friend for dinner? Put your phone away!
- Send snail mail! Dr. Margie Warrell says, “Do the old-fashioned thing and buy a pretty card, write a lovely note (it can be short!) and mail it to someone. Nothing beats a handwritten message.”
- Help the homeless. Check out ways to do so here, or simply reach out to homeless people in your city with an offer of food, blankets, coats, socks, and other necessities – and stop to ask how they’re doing and talk to them like the human beings they are.
- Leave encouraging notes on mirrors with messages like, “You look great!” or “You’re doing an awesome job!”
- Praise a worker to their manager, whether it’s your own colleague, a cashier at the supermarket or your pizza delivery driver.
- Thank a teacher, whether it’s one of your own from the past or the teacher who’s working tirelessly to educate your child.
- Teach local kids a skill! If you know local parents or friends with kids.
- Donate old linens and newspapers to an animal shelter.
- Share an uplifting or empowering song
- Be kind to yourself. Whether your self-care is a bubble bath, 15 minutes of meditation or just forgiving yourself for something, extend the same kindness to yourself that you would to your closest friend.
