A Good Friday : It Should Be Nice Out Today as Random Thoughtfulness Rains Down
They want a world where you can depend on the kindness of strangers.
A world where instead of flashing the high beams at a freeway slowpoke, you toss them a smile. A world where instead of chuckling as the elevator door shuts on some chump, you--perhaps even surprising yourself--tap the “Open Door” button.
What imaginary planet was this again? Our own Spaceship Earth, they say.
They are the Kindness Movement, a new and loose network of somewhat shy do-gooders who, by early accounts, are killing doubters with, well, you know. The nationwide group has spread the gospel to 38 states and even to New Zealand and Canada, and the first-ever Random Acts of Kindness Day will be observed today in some small but considerate fashion. “All you ever hear about is the bad stuff,” said Andrea Manes, 44, who accepted an Anaheim City Council proclamation reserving Friday for random kindness. “It’s a day to give up a cup of coffee to someone. Anything that helps.”
Like others across the country, Southern California advocates aren’t leaving kindness to chance this week. In Orange County, they plan to hand out teddy bears at the Anaheim police station, donate clothing to the needy and give beanbag chairs to Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
Meanwhile, in Santa Monica, children at Roosevelt Elementary School will pen letters to children in earthquake-ravaged Kobe, Japan. In Long Beach and Los Angeles, Meals on Wheels will tuck Valentine’s Day cards in meal deliveries this week.
Such widespread recognition has legitimized the movement, which encourages such spontaneous acts as mowing a friend’s lawn, putting coins into someone else’s parking meter and buying ice cream cones for kids. The good deeds, ideally anonymous, elevate a person to a higher spiritual level and help make the world a kinder, gentler place, say supporters.
“I’m the pusher at my school,” jokes Becky Downes, a business teacher at Valley High School in Santa Ana and one of several kindness coordinators in Orange County. “The kids really love it and it’s such a good idea. It’s really needed with all the violence in the world.”
The Kindness Movement has been gaining momentum since the 1993 publication of “Random Acts of Kindness,” a collection of true stories. The book and two sequels extol the virtues of altruism and offer suggestions.
But the movement owes its start to Berkeley writer Anne Herbert who penned the phrase, “practice random kindness and acts of senseless beauty” in 1982. Eleven years later, kindness followers received another boost from Bakersfield teacher Chuck Wall, who was among the first to print bumper stickers urging, “Commit Random Acts of Senseless Kindness.”
However, not everybody is rushing to embrace the Kindness Movement. Supporters say they frequently collide with people who laugh off the campaign as simplistic and futile.
“They are sourpusses,” said Downes, who gave a homeless person $50 on the spur of the moment this week. “That’s their problem.”
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Westminster City Councilwoman Charmayne Bohman, who is distributing “Kindness” bumper stickers, said: “I believe there is too much meanness in the world. Everybody seems to be mad or angry about something. If we can redirect that energy even for one day to something positive, maybe it will be catching.”
For some uncomfortable with the limelight, involvement in the Kindness Movement represents an act of courage. Patty Todd, a 37-year-old teacher’s aide in Anaheim, organized business and community leaders to donate clothes to the needy, even though she didn’t want to be so noticeable.
“I’m a really shy person,” Todd said. “When I found out there was no coordinator in Orange County, I didn’t know if I should do it or not. But I thought this was really important. So I did it.”
As a prelude to the big kindness day, Todd and supporters arranged for students at Anaheim’s Betsy Ross Elementary School to sing songs and read poems praising senior citizens Thursday. At one point in the assembly, individual students thanked older people who had helped them.
One student was grateful to an anonymous elder who unexpectedly sank 50 cents into a video game she wanted to play. Another acknowledged a grandparent who comforted her when she was sick.
The students’ guests at the school assembly were residents of a nearby retirement home. One of them was 10-year-old Katie Joosten’s grandmother, Irene Burke, 71, to whom Katie read a special Valentine’s Day poem.
“I’ve gotten a lot of Valentines before,” said Burke, who lives in nearby Walnut Manor. “But never one like that. It was truly lovely.”
Principal Roberta Thompson said the assembly was “the heart of what kids need to learn, that it’s OK to be kind and gentle.”
“Besides, you need something to break up the O.J. news.”
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Kindling Kindness
Today is National Random Acts of Kindness Day, recognized by the federal government and organized by the Kindness Movement to encourage people to practice random acts of kindness. Here are 10 things the movement suggests as ways to elevate your kindness quotient:
1. Plant a tree in your neighborhood.
2. Visit a hospital with smiles, treats and friendly conversation for patients.
3. Take home-cooked meals, blankets and socks to the homeless.
4. Send a mail-order gift, anonymously, to a friend.
5. Pay for a few cones the next time you go to an ice cream parlor; ask that they be given to the next kids who arrive.
6. Open the phone book, select a name at random, and send that person a greeting card.
7. When someone is trying to merge into your lane in traffic, let them--and smile and wave while doing it.
8. When grocery shopping, leave coupons you can’t use on the appropriate shelf.
9. Leave a flower or funny card under a windshield wiper.
10. Drop a dollar where someone will find it.
Source: Kindness Movement
