Random act of kindness

We've had the privilege of providing comfort, hope, encouragement, and helping them heal and find peace.

I've watched military families in crisis breathe a sigh of relief when they receive help within hours through our random acts of kindness grants for medical bills, funeral expenses, home adaptations, and emergency needs, reminding them that they are not alone in their crisis.

I've watched little children hug a Build-A-Bear we gave them with Daddy's recorded voice inside, giving them the comfort of hearing his voice while he was deployed.

What a legacy Mark has left in 20 years.

And this is spawned from, uh, the letter that, the last email letter that you got home-

Yeah

... from Mark, where he talked about just random acts of kindness.

When's the last time you bought somebody a cup of coffee? When's the last time you paid for a pa- tank of gas, uh, for someone that you didn't know or you did know? And, you know, I, I, the stuff that...

In chapter eight, you take us into a practice.

It's called Acts of Kindness.

And I want to read a paragraph from that chapter.

It's in the reoccurring section of missional spirituality and that part of the focus of it.

And so I think that's like with that act of kindness, like chapter 18, It's focusing on that, like how can we be people who are like almost thinking ahead to being intentional about saying, I know I walk by this shop often.

Why don't I actually intentionally take this to this person? Or I know this person really likes this thing and I can just grab it while I'm at the grocery store and then just give it to them or whatever.

And it can be very simple, but those little acts of kindness actually mean a lot to people.

They certainly do.

I just feel like there's something in it.

You know, I've become a really big fan of – The Random Acts of Kindness organization and their website's amazing.

There's so many beautiful resources on there and, you know, how they talk about how you can actually learn kindness.

There's actually like a muscle there that you can create.

So anyway, talk about it forever.

But yeah, the Random Acts of Kindness website is a brilliant place to head into.

They've got a lot of amazing resources on there.

creating kindness in the workplace, at school, in your community.

Okay, on to our next story.

This one comes from the subreddit Random Acts of Kindness, and it is titled A Girl's Kind Gesture Through a Marketplace Listing.

Here it goes.

"So it was a random Friday night, and I was browsing Reddit Marketplace listings for electronics, and I came across a listing for a used Bluetooth speaker, but the text below upset me.

... back or something, you know?

So I thought that was really cool.

All right, this next one comes from the r- subreddit Random Acts of Kindness, and it is titled, I Spent a Few Minutes Learning Sign Language to Say Thank You.

[laughs]

We started expanding the newsroom.

We started a random acts of kindness program.

Um, and, which I think for the first time in my business career, I found a business that had purpose, not just for me, I mean, but the whole business had purpose and the kind of mission was very clear.

And now the way I think about it is there's really nothing that I know of that would provide that purpose.

in the same way because we have so much ability to make impact in the community, whether that be through journalism or whether that be through things like Random Acts of Kindness, now our Community Builders Awards, all of our Good Works initiatives, et cetera.

It's really driven by purpose now.

And so it was like, well, there's a lot more markets to go now when you decide to get up past the North.

It's like, let's just pitch them a concept.