‘The Great Kindness Challenge’: Who’s In?

With this new year, I’ve forced myself to make fitness a priority, so right after I drop off my sons at school most mornings, I head over to the fitness center on my local Air Force base for a run and some weight training. I was thrilled to see that they had treadmills with integrated cable TV. Plug in some headphones, and I could enjoy my daily dose of Good Morning America while I knock out 3-4 miles.

And with my return to the fitness center, and a return to my daily GMA, I’ve been seeing lots of news and ideas worth sharing with my favorite GeekMom readers: all of you!

On Monday I saw a clip on GMA about a program called The Great Kindness Challenge. Run by a children’s nonprofit called Kids for Peace, this challenge runs for a week during the second half of January (this year it’s 23-27 January, in other words, right now) and is meant to inspire school-aged children to turn up the volume on practicing acts of kindness.

While the program is mainly for schools and school districts, in that there are specific registration pages and pledge programs expressly for school staffs, all of the materials are publicly available and I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to at least download the checklist and see what types of things we could do for each other. Thousands of schools are signed up for this program, and last year over 5 million K-12 students participated.

Does it only have to be this week? Why not all the time? These might be things we do all the time without even thinking… but let’s take a moment and think about the folks we impact with our acts of kindness. Let’s truly ensure everyone is okay.

If you are disappointed that you might have missed half of this week’s kindness, don’t fret! February 12-17, 2017, is Random Acts of Kindness Week, which is managed by the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. Similar resources are available at their website.

The challenge is on! Considering some of the serious divisiveness I’m observing in our world, our country, and heck, even my own Facebook feed, perhaps it’s time to take a step back to basics… one act of kindness at a time.

How many of the Great Kindness Challenge checklist items do you think you could do by the end of the week? How many do you do every day already? How many do you think you could turn into a daily habit?