Random Act of Kid-ness: There’s a Monkey in My Chair
This week’s Random Act of Kid-ness comes to us from Cincinnati, OH, where a group of kids from Piner Elementary School started a program to raise money for children with cancer. Since many of the kids know people who have cancer or who have lost their lives to cancer, they wanted to help out. They started with a program called Change Wars, where the students brought in change to raise money, and then they started selling hair bows. That fundraiser earned over $300 for children living with cancer.
There’s a Monkey in My Chair is a program that the students developed. Stuffed monkeys sit in their classrooms to represent kids who are in the hospital. “It reminds you that friend with cancer needs support, in school or outside it. ‘Having the monkey there, the kids can interact with the monkey, they can write letters to the monkey, and take pictures of the monkey doing silly stuff, in the room or where the children normally would be in. It makes the children think they are still there and that they care about them.’”
Some of the students at Piner Elementary have said:
“I feel really proud. I love helping people and I couldn’t find a way to until Koryn did, and that’s why I really wanted to do it.”
”I think if they pictured themselves and they wouldn’t want someone to not help them.”
”I feel proud that we helped them.” The teachers and staff here do too.
What a thoughtful program! We love this idea. To read more about There’s a Monkey in My Chair, click here.
Random Act of Kid-ness: Mourning with Boston
(Credit: Facebook/America Loves Iraq)
This week’s Random Act of Kid-ness comes to us all the way from Iraq, where 2 young boys posed for a picture with a sign that says “We Mourn with Boston.” The two boys understand what it is like to experience the aftermath of a terror attack and they sympathize with the pain Americans are going through after the Boston Marathon attacks earlier this week. On the same day as the Boston tragedy alone, at least 33 people were killed and more than 160 were injured after bombings struck various Iraqi cities. Blogger Kevin Gosztola says:
”We are all citizens of the world, and our pain can bring us together.”
We are inspired by the kindness of these 2 young boys, and our sympathy goes out to everyone affected by the tragedies in Boston and throughout the world this week and always.
Random Act of Kid-ness: Kindness Balloons
Maija Hoggett photo
This week’s Random Act of Kid-ness comes to us from Ontario, Canada, where students from Baxter Central Public School performed random acts of kindness by releasing balloons into the air. Students attached a note to each balloon with a suggested random act of kindness for whoever finds the balloon to carry out. Some examples of random acts that students wrote down were: holding doors for people, saying hi to strangers to brighten their day, and leaving $20 at a coffee shop register so people can have free coffee until it runs out. Grade 8 student Felicity Darcy said:
“The guerilla kindness really worked for us and left a good impact on the school.”
We think this is an exciting way to spread kindness! Check out the rest of this article to read more great quotes from the students.
Random Act of Kid-ness: Helping Homeless on Way to Chemotherapy
This week’s Random Act of Kid-ness comes to us from Philadelphia, PA where first grader Ella Wilson brings food and blankets to the homeless people in her city every Thursday on her way to chemotherapy. Ella is getting treatment for neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on the nerves. But to take her mind off her year-long treatment, she has decided to focus on making other people happy.
You can watch an inspiring video about Ella’s story and learn how you can help her raise money for neurofibromatosis research on her Facebook page here.
As always, we ask for your suggestions for our next RAK. Do you know someone who is doing random acts of kindness? Let us know!
Random Act of Kid-ness: SPPRAK
This week’s Random Act of Kid-ness comes to us from Terre Haute, IN, where students at Dixie Bee Elementary School participated in a new program yesterday by SPPRAK. SPPRAK is short for Special People Performing Random Acts of Kindness and is a nonprofit that helps improve its community by supporting groups that need extra funding.
The program at Dixie Bee lets students leave sticky notes on a large banner in the school’s front hallway that note random acts of kindness that their peers had done. These random acts of kindness have included holding the door for someone, helping draw a picture, and sharing lunches. “In just a few seconds, Dixie Bee students had posted about two-dozen “random acts of kindness” on the banner, which is in the school’s front hallway.”
We think this is a great, visible way to get all students involved in spreading and sharing random acts of kindness!
To read more about this story and SPPRAK, click here.
Random Act of Kid-ness: Reminding Veterans to Ask for Help
This week’s Random Act of Kid-ness comes to us from Alabama, where 7 year old John Murray, Jr. has tried to convince suicidal veterans to ask for help. When he saw the word “suicide” on a poster in a local Army health center, he asked his mom what the word meant. When he found out what suicide meant, John wanted to work to prevent it. He wrote “Ask for help!!!!!” on post-it notes throughout the Fox Army Health Center so that the veterans would remember that people care about them. John said:
“When they don’t have any broken arms or legs, and no blood. You can’t see the sadness inside them, but they still need help. [...] I wrote a reminder for Army people to ask for help and did five exclamation points because it is real important. My teacher, Ms. Hardiman, said an exclamation point is like yelling a sentence. I put five exclamation points so it would be really loud. Maybe the Army person who is hurt just forgot to ask for help. This will help remind them.”
One veteran commits suicide every 65 minutes, so what John is doing is incredibly important. Great job, John!
To read more about this story and find out how to help or get help, click here.
Random Act of Kid-ness: We Care Bears Project
This week’s Random Act of Kid-ness comes to us from Irvine, where 10 year old Jessica Carscadden came up with the We Care Bears Project that gives stuffed animals to first responders to hand out to scared or hurt children who they meet on the job. Jessica was abandoned in China when she was little because of a facial defect. She was adopted by a US couple, and she now wants to give back to children in need.
This week, Jessica delivered 75 bags of stuffed animals to the Orange County Fire District!
To watch a video about this story, click here.
Random Act of Kid-ness: #26acts
This week’s Random Act of Kid-ness highlights 26 acts of kindness from children and adults across the world. This week, we love that in honor of Sandy Hook Elementary School victims, the hashtags #26acts and #26actsofkindness are trending on Twitter. In the wake of the tragedy one week ago today, Ann Curry called on people to do 26 random acts of kindness- one for each of the people killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Buzzfeed compiled some of the responses she got here, like the one below, and we know there are so many more out there.
We hope you, too, will be inspired to act and spread the word!
Random Act of Kid-ness: Re-Gifting to Children in Need
In light of the tragedy in Connecticut this morning, we think it is more appropriate than ever for our weekly Random Act of Kid-ness that highlights the kindness of humanity.
This week’s RAK is another from generationOn and Hasbro’s “Be a Joy Maker” campaign. We want to highlight Raymond, who submitted this act of kindness:
“At the age of 4, I was diagnosed with a rare hp disease that left me in a double leg brace for two years. Feeling fortunate that my illness was not life threatening, I decided that I had to do something for the kids that I left behind in the hospital. So I took all my christmas gifts and returned to the hospital I spent time in and to uplift the spirits of the kids that were not coming home for the holidays. After I saw the joy on the faces of the kids, I decided to continue doing this work. I went door to door asking friends, family and neighbors for donations so I can purchase new toys for the sick kids. My efforts became so popular that we had to form a foundation.”
Raymond’s generosity is so inspiring, especially in times of tragedy. How do you show kindness to those in your community?
We also want to congratulate Hasbro and generationOn for topping their 100,000 goal for acts of service and donated toys! With a week to go!
Random Act of Kid-ness: Teen Invents Advanced Cancer Test!
This week’s Random Act of Kid-ness comes to us from Maryland, where 15 year old Jack Andraka developed a pancreatic cancer test with the help of Google. Jack’s test is 168 times faster and much cheaper than the current standard in the field! In May he won $75,000 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his development.
We think this is a pretty incredible story that shows that once you put your mind to something, you can do ANYTHING- at ANY age. Way to go, Jack!
Read more about this story here.
