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Kindness in Action

See Kind

We can all work small acts of kindness into our daily lives!  They don’t have to cost a penny or take more than a minute.  Join us as we share ideas about how you can spread kindness throughout your everyday interactions.

Be Kind

Kindness is happening all around us every day but sometimes you have to really look for it. Help us “catch” and notice the kindness of others and then celebrate both the small and big moments. What would happen if we documented every day acts of kindness?  Let’s find out!

Random Acts of Kindness (Inspiration!)

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Only have 5 minutes or no money to spend?

  • Compliment the first three people you talk to today
  • Smile at five strangers
  • Leave letters of encouragement on people’s cars
  • Leave a note on someone’s car telling them how awesome they parked
  • Hold the doors open for people
  • Let someone go in front of you in line
  • Help a senior with their groceries
  • Hold the elevator for someone
  • Write a kind or encouraging message on a napkin
  • Offer to take a photo of a couple
  • Give someone a gift card that you don’t intend to use
  • Give up your seat on the bus/subway/train to another person
  • Instead of posting negativity online start a “Positive Gossip” thread.
  • While you’re out, compliment a parent on how well-behaved their child is
  • Tweet or Facebook message a genuine compliment to three people right now
  • Email or write an old teacher who made a difference in your life
  • Compliment someone to their boss
  • Let them have the parking space
  • Take out your neighbor’s trash/recycle bins for them
  • Give away items for free on Craigslist.
  • Give someone a hug.  Ask first!
  • Check in daily by text with somebody currently going through a hard time
  • When you’re throwing something away on the street, pick up any litter around you and put that in the trash too.
  • Relay an overheard compliment
  • Offer to return a shopping cart to the store for someone loading groceries in their car.
  • Say thank you to a janitor
  • Put your phone away while in the company of others
  • Have a LinkedIn account? Write a recommendation for coworker or connection.
  • Keep an extra umbrella at work, so you can lend it out when it rains
  • Send a ‘Thank you’ card or note to the officers at your local fire station.
  • Try to make sure every person in a group conversation feels included
  • Make plans with that person you’ve been putting off seeing
  • Leave a note of appreciation on a local business’ front door
  • Stop to talk to a homeless person
  • Answer that email you’ve been avoiding
  • Talk to someone at work whom you haven’t talked to before
  • Help someone struggling with heavy bags
  • Donate your old eyeglasses so someone else can use them.
  • Learn the names of your office security guard, the person at the front desk and other people you see every day. Greet them by name.
  • Send a gratitude email to a coworker who deserves more recognition.
  • Say hi to the person next to you on the elevator
  • Write a kind message on your mirror with a dry erase marker for yourself, your significant other or a family member
  • Text someone just to say good morning or good night.
  • Send a friend a funny video from YouTube
  • Help someone load their luggage into the overhead bin
  • Give someone else the cab that you hailed
  • Stop to assist someone who looks lost
  • Say something encouraging to a parent who’s struggling with rambunctious kids in a restaurant or grocery store.
  • Call a family member just to catch up
  • Tag a kindness hero of yours on social media and tell them why you admire them

Have $5 or less to spend?

  • Leave money in/on a vending machine for someone
  • Insert coins into someone’s parking meter
  • Bake cookies for your neighbors, a local charity, a nursing home, etc.
  • Pay for someone’s morning coffee
  • Pay for someone’s bus/cab fare
  • Leave some money in a Redbox movie when you return it for snacks for the next people to watch the movie
  • Pay the toll for the person behind you
  • Make two lunches and give one away
  • Send dessert to another table
  • Tape coins around a playground for kids to find.
  • Leave a box of goodies in your mailbox for your mail carrier.
  • Leave quarters at the laundromat
  • Say yes at the store when the cashier asks if you want to donate $1 to whichever cause
  • Bring a security guard a hot cup of coffee
  • Buy lemonade from a kid’s lemonade stand.
  • Be the person who puts a tip in the tip jar at the coffee shop
  • Carry a $5 gift card with you and give it someone random
  • Buy a lottery ticket for a stranger

More Time?

  • Shovel a neighbor’s driveway when it snows, rake their leaves, mow their grass
  • Host a Happiness/Appreciation dinner
  • Walk a neighbor’s dog
  • Babysit for free for anyone who could use the time out alone
  • Send a letter to a good friend instead of a text
  • Wash someone’s car
  • Make a family member breakfast in bed, or bring them coffee
  • Collect all the shopping carts in a parking lot
  • Write a list of things that you adore about a friend.  Send it to them.
  • Run errands for a sick friend
  • Donate your hair after a haircut
  • Leave unused coupons next to corresponding products in the grocery store
  • Practice self-kindness and spend 30 minutes doing something you love today.
  • Offer help to any parent on an airplane who is travelling alone or who is obviously struggling with their child(ren)
  • Post inspirational sticky notes around your neighborhood, office, school, etc.
  • Help tutor a struggling student
  • Play board games with senior citizens at a nursing home
  • Cook a meal or do a load of laundry for a friend who just had a baby or is going through a difficult time
  • Make someone a homemade blanket or scarf – give to somebody you know or donate to a local cancer support organization
  • Donate or recycle your old laptop and electronics
  • Have a clean up party at a beach or park.
  • Encounter someone in customer service who is especially kind? Take an extra five minutes to tell their manager.
  • Place positive body image notes in jean pockets at a department store
  • When you go somewhere to get or do something, ask the people around you if you can pick up anything they need
  • Make a handmade greeting card for obscure holidays
  • Write kind messages on the sidewalk in chalk
  • Invite someone who may be alone over for dinner
  • Volunteer at a local charity.
  • Write letters to strangers who need them. More Love Letters has a list of people who could benefit from letters of encouragement. Each person has been added to the web site by a friend or family member.
  • Collect soda can tabs to donate to Ronald McDonald House for sick children and their families.

More Money?

  • Make dinner for a family in need
  • Buy flowers to hand out on the street
  • Buy a movie ticket for the person behind you
  • Pay for someone’s meal at a restaurant
  • Bring in donuts or healthy treat for your co-workers
  • Leave your waiter a generous tip
  • Buy groceries for the person behind you
  • Donate items to local homeless shelter
  • Invest in your community – shop locally
  • Donate items to after school programs/any programs supporting children in need
  • Give someone a book you think they’d like.
  • Purchase some extra dog or cat food and drop it off at an animal shelter, bring them old blankets
  • Take flowers or treats to the nurses’ station at your nearest hospital
  • Leave a gas gift card at a gas pump.
  • Take all your change to Coinstar and donate your collection to charity
  • Contact local children’s hospital and ask what they need
  • Send flowers anonymously to somebody who would never suspect it was you
  • If you’re an Amazon.com customer you can donate Amazon.com’s money to your favorite U.S. nonprofit through Amazon Smile

Seeing Kindness – Easier than you think!

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It is easy to believe that the world is an awful place, just turn on your tv, read a newspaper or read news articles online.  You can even browse your FB feed and only find disheartening information.  Would you believe that at the same time millions of little acts of kindness are also happening?  We are actually wired to only notice negative things, it’s called the negativity bias.  So yes, you can technically blame your brain but that isn’t terribly productive and doesn’t give you a free pass.  Through the beauty and wonder of neuroplasticity it is never too late to rewire your brain, one small connection at a time.  Why not start with the small act of just noticing.  We are presented with multiple times daily to just stop for 5 seconds and noticing what it going right/well around us.  Acts of kindness aren’t always – or even usually – flashy or expensive.

Here are some every day examples of acts of kindness.  Credit: Everything Changes column at The Awl

  • Climbing out of the subway I saw two women ahead of me. They did not seem to know each other. The woman ahead on the stairs tripped and her shoe twisted off. The other woman behind her caught the shoe and with both hands perfectly slipped it back on the stranger’s foot. This happened as if choreographed, and under 4 seconds.
  • A man was sitting on the subway with his daughter in his lap, a water bottle full of coffee at their feet. A woman handed him a plastic bag, saying “it’s going to spill.” He said, “You’re right, it is!” And he tied the bag around his coffee. —Ella
  • I was on a very early flight with a lot of people who should have been cranky and impossible to deal with, but instead waited their turn, apologized when they needed to, complimented shoes, shared outlets, and were respectful of others’ space. A lot of tiny kindnesses turned a potentially shitty situation into an altogether pleasant one. —Maggie C.
  • About a week ago I was taking the bus home after a long day of working my two jobs. My stop is the very last one and all other patrons except for me exited, leaving just me and the bus driver. The driver called me up to the front and said that this was his final route of the day and offered to drive me a little closer to my final destination. It was only a few blocks–but in those few minutes we shared about our days and talked a little about yoga (I was wearing the iconic stretchy pants as I had just left the studio that I work at). I thanked him for his kindness and we wished each other good weekends. —Carol
  • A bagel shop cashier abandoned his post and ran across the store to help a woman with a stroller with the heavy door.
  • My husband and I were having lunch together at a deli. A woman two tables over from us was eating by herself and received a phone call on her bluetooth. She began crying from what appears to have been bad news. She was fairly quiet about it and kept it to herself, but she was obviously crying. Another patron in the restaurant stopped, patted her shoulder and mouthed “Are you OK?”. She nodded through her tears and continued with her phone call. He and a few other patrons continued to monitor her out of the corner of their eyes, but gave her her privacy. It seemed a small gesture – but I felt all of us in the restaurant sending her strength through the man’s small pat on the shoulder. —LG
  • My husband and I were having lunch together at a deli. A woman two tables over from us was eating by herself and received a phone call on her bluetooth. She began crying from what appears to have been bad news. She was fairly quiet about it and kept it to herself, but she was obviously crying. Another patron in the restaurant stopped, patted her shoulder and mouthed “Are you OK?”. She nodded through her tears and continued with her phone call. He and a few other patrons continued to monitor her out of the corner of their eyes, but gave her her privacy. It seemed a small gesture – but I felt all of us in the restaurant sending her strength through the man’s small pat on the shoulder. —LG
  • A lady was walking the opposite direction of me and [a man who kept blocking the path on the sidewalk] as he stopped completely, in my direct path again, so I had to stop right behind him so that I didn’t walk into him. He started walking again, and I just stood there for a second, to give him a chance to get several steps ahead, with what I thought was an exasperated look on my face. As the lady walking toward me and this gentleman passed, she said to me in a low voice, without even making eye contact with me, “Are you okay?” At that moment, I just replied, “Oh, yes, thank you,” but as I walked on, it occurred to me that she may have thought that this man and I were together, and that the look I had on my face was me trying to signal her that something was wrong/I needed help. I thought it was wonderful that she saw a stranger she thought might need help, that she actually made the effort to ask if things were okay, and that she did it in a way where no one else would notice her asking in case it really was a situation where things were not okay. It made me think that I need to pick up that habit in the future.