KIND Blog & News

This month, instead of issuing a specific KINDING Mission, the KIND Team challenged our community to brighten a stranger’s day with a Do It Yourself KINDING.  Boy, were we pleasantly surprised!  Not only did we surpass our threshold of participation by almost to 900% (!), we received hundreds of stories of how KINDAHOLICS went about completing the KINDING Mission.  

As always it is hard to choose our favorite KINDING Stories, but the following taught us new and creative ways to brighten a stranger’s day.  We’d like to thank these story sharers with a KIND Cube, and we will be celebrating the kindness of our entire community by delivering Thanksgiving Meals to the elderly of Los Angeles.  Thank you to all KINDAHOLICS for making another Big KIND Act happen!

My neighbor recently took in her four grandchildren to raise. Their ages are 15,12,6,and 4… So first she needed beds. I made some calls and found a set of bunk beds free of charge. And then the calls and donations kept coming. Kindness spreads when you show a little yourself! It just takes one sometimes to get it started and you may be that one. Never underestimate what you can do in someones life. Because you very well could be the key to someones tomarrow. You can make a difference if you try!
- Shannon K.  

A nice elderly man holding a bouquet of flowers was approaching the checkout line at the grocery store at the same time I was. My 2-year-old was very ready to leave the store, and he waved me in front of him so that I could get on my way more expediently. I had a lot of thinsg to purchase and felt so grateful that he’d been so generous. I told the girl at the register to ring up his flowers on my bill as a thank you. He was quite befuddled when it was his turn to check-out and she told him I’d paid. He walked by me as I was unloading my groceries from my cart into my car and explained that he buys flowers to place on his wife’s grave on the first of every month. Now I know that there is nothing more beautiful than an old man holding flowers.
- Meghan C.

[I] Surprised [my] elderly neighbor with some fresh coffee and breakfast from his favorite doughnut place. [It's] Hard for him to walk or leave the house anymore. I picked up a dozen for him and [a] tall coffee this morning and he was surprised. He said it was 6 months ago the last time he had anything from Benny’s and misses going there for his moring joe and doughnut.
-Christopher S.

This KIND Tuesday, in the spirit of Breast Cancer Awareness Month , KIND asked members of our community to write a thoughtful note to a woman who has impacted their lives.  Since we soared past our threshold of participation, KIND will be partnering with National Breast Cancer Foundation to donate comfort kits to women undergoing breast cancer treatment. 

We are thankful to our tens of thousands of community members for accepting the KINDING Mission and enabling us to donate cancer comfort kits, but also for sharing tons of individualized stories.  As a token of our appreciation, we will be KINDING 6 of our community members with KIND Cubes, for sharing super touching KINDING Stories that warmed our hearts.  These inspiring stories capture how to take a simple action and transform it into a gesture that can brighten another’s day, week and even year:

I have a really good friend that I don’t tell enough how much she means to me…we tend to go day to day taking for granted how much we need and mean to each other. I sent her a card expressing my feelings. She called me to say thank you and told me that it brought tears to her eyes and made her day.

- Patti S.

I sent a homemade cake to my mom with a note. The note said that she was my best friend because she has always supported me. She has been there for me at the best and worst times and has always done everything to help me.

- Clarissa

My mother suffered from depression and due to that my older sister raised me. I let my sister know all the time how much she means to me, but I recently gave her a special thank you for all she has done.

- Jeanette

Thank you to all of our KINDAHOLICS, for making this past KIND Tuesday another success! We appreciate your support and hope that the women who receive cancer comfort kits will too.

This month, we saw another tremendous amount of kindness emanating from our community, and this time around, your KIND Acts are the reason why we are able to build sustainable vegetable gardens in schools across the country! Because so many of you gave a completed book, newspaper or magazine to someone who would enjoy reading it, we will be able to educate and empower children to make healthy and informed choices.  We are thrilled to plant multiple gardens, and to deliver these learning experiences to children nationwide.

As a token of our gratitude for all of the touching stories that you have shared, we would like to give KIND Cubes to our favorite 10 KINDING Story Sharers.   It was incredibly difficult to select our top KINDING Stories, as each story shared and each book, magazine or newspaper passed along managed to warm our hearts in its own way.   Below are the winners of this month’s KINDING Story competition, and we already cannot wait to see how you KIND your neighbors, friends and strangers next month!

We look forward to celebrating our community’s kindness in the coming weeks and months by building gardens that will blossom and grow as our community of KINDAHOLICS continues to do the same.

We give our reading materials to our local rest home for the residents to enjoy. My mom reads to the residents several times a year. She was a grade school librarian and now works for the local newspaper. She is the reason I recycle books, mags, and papers as well by passing them on.          - Sheri D.

My story is simple. I love to read and I purchase books new all the time. When I am finished with them now, I donate them to our library. We just recently had four branches close because of the state of the economy, so I know that getting new books will not be likely to happen. I will gladly give the books I have purchased to the Public Library anytime.                                                                      – Charlotte D.

I subscribe to many cooking magazines. Instead of cutting out recipes, I scan and print them. Then I pass the magazines along to my foodie friends and suggest they do the same thing. That way the magazines stay intact so all can enjoy them.                                                                                                                 –  Joyce E.

Like many other parents, I am taking a child to enroll in his first semester of college. I know a lot of other parents who are having the same anxieties and I shared an article about the situation and coping that I found in the New York Times and shared it with five of them! It felt good when I did it and better when they told me that it was useful.                                                                                                                                    – Larry

Recently, while on vacation, I read a book called The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. A woman who was next to me at the pool commented that she loved Sarah Waters but hadn’t read that book, so I passed it on as soon as I was finished. She was thrilled!

Check out this short and sweet story from one of our KINDAHOLICS.  Her enthusiasm shows that although we didn’t meet our threshold this past month, Do the KIND Thing is making leaps and bounds in spreading KINDNESS!  Thank you, Yolanda for your energy and generous spirit!



“I once gave a candle to the lady who is the school cross-guard.  She doesn’t know me because I don’t have chlldren.  I gave her the candle and told her “ thank you for being so kind and for keeping our children safe.”  Her face lit up she was overwhelmed and said to me” I am going to be a Grandmother today!  This is so special!  I cannot believe this random act of kindness- you made my day.”

Later on Kurt [a friend] who knew I was giving the candle to her drove by after an early work day and there she was still holding the candle.  He opened his window and asked her “hey, what’s with the candle?”

She lit up again and said to him “I received this today just for doing my job!  Can you believe it!”  She was beaming and smiling from ear to ear!  I also had a warm fuzzy feeling after I had left her, and my smile looked just like the pudding commercial!  The feeling lasted for a few days….it was worth it.”

- Yolanda

This month’s KINDING Mission sparked KINDNESS around the country, proving that KINDNESS knows no bounds.

Check out some of our favorite stories about how our KINDAHOLICS carried out their KINDING Mission, thus making this month’s BIG KIND Act possible.

My daugther teaches and leads a girl scout troop- I am so proud of her.  She lives in Texas, and I am in Maine, so I sent her some dried fruit.

- Teresa S.

Gave fruit to my mother in law for helping my oldest son with his school work everyday to maintain a great GPA.

-John G., Idaho

My husband gave a box of fruit to our pre-school teacher and her assistant teacher in New York.  To us, teachers are like family and giving the healthy snack was a small gestures in comparrison to the amazing work they do with our children.

- Nora E.

Our planet got KINDED – and it’s all thanks to you! Just in time for Earth Day, we swept the nation (literally!) with a whole lot of kindness that was made possible by the overwhelming number of you who took part in April’s KINDING Mission.

In the weeks surrounding Earth Day on April 22^nd, we joined forces with hundreds of enthusiastic local volunteers, including families, students and groups of friends, in 8 cities across the country: New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, to clean up our natural landscape. Glamorous? Maybe not! But TONS OF FUN? You bet!

We rolled up our sleeves and braved the elements to put some grueling but rewarding hours into cleaning community parks, beaches and streets. In three separate parks, we planted shrubs and trees that will now breathe new life into the surrounding grounds. Along park trails, we cleared out hazardous debris, making the paths a place for local residents to be able to get outside and enjoy the outdoors. From New York’s city streets to California’s coastlines, we removed trash and thoughtless litter, working to restore these areas to their natural bounty.

When all was said and done, the BIG KIND Act made our communities a whole lot greener and KINDER too…and it all started with just one act of kindness from you…take a look!