Celebrate World Kindness Day
Word of the Week Benevolent (buh-neh-vuh-lent): Another fancy word for generous or kind. . .or magnanimous! It comes from the Latin words bene meaning "good" and velle meaning "to wish."
Salve and ATTENTION!
It's almost time to celebrate one of my most favorite days of the year again! Saturday, November 13th is World Kindness Day. It's the perfect time to be kind to everyone one around you, to be kind to yourself, and to be kind to the world. We've celebrated before, and I encouraged and challenged you to do as many kind things as you could think of.
This year, I want to share with you some incredibly kind people/organizations that I've stumbled upon. People, just like you, can be so creative. To put it simply, these stories simply blew me away. . .and I think you will love to hear about them!
Nashville Street Barbers: This group was founded by Caroline Linder. On Monday evenings, she and other local area barbers provide free haircuts to homeless people in their community. What a simple and beautiful way to give back to your community. So magnanimous!
Suspended Coffee: Simply walk into a participating coffee shop and pay for an extra coffee (or two, or three, or. . .) and ask them to be put on the suspended list. Anyone (college students, someone having a rough month, a homeless person, etc.) can come in and ask for one. It's that easy! Founded by John Sweeney, a plumber from Ireland, his simple idea came from an old Italian tradition called café sospeso. He posted his idea on Facebook in March 2013, and the results have been astounding!
Petal it Forward: I missed the opportunity to celebrate this special day with you this year, but there's always next year! This is a holiday that occurs on October 20th and is celebrated in 45 states! Participants simply give flowers and bouquets to strangers. This is something I'd love for my community to get involved in! It was founded 6 years ago by The Society of American Florists. They know first-hand the powerful impact flowers can have on our health and well-being. Their research shows: -Flowers have an immediate impact on happiness, and as they say, a smile is contagious. -Flowers have a long-term positive effect on mood. -When in the presence of flowers, seniors show a significant increase in happiness and mood, perform better on everyday memory tasks, and experience enriched personal memories.
I'm hoping that these few examples of spreading kindness have inspired you as much as they have inspired me! My brain feels like it's twirling with all the different ideas bouncing around in my head now. My challenge to you? BE kind. DO kind things for yourself and for others. TRY to think of your own unique way you can impact the lives of others. . .you just might change the world! Have a great idea? I want to hear all about it! Send your ideas to LJMadwish@gmail.com. Together, we might just be able to bring it to life.
Stay magnanimous. . .
Gram