Kindness Starts with Us — 23 Acts of Kindness for the Holiday Season

 
Kindness Starts with Us — 23 Acts of Kindness for the Holiday Season
Posted in: Acts of Kindness, Good Deeds, Random Acts of Kindness, Random Acts of Kindness Ideas

Here are dozens of easy ways you can make a real difference this holiday season. After all, what better way is there to get into the holiday spirit than giving back?

Holiday acts of kindness

Buy gifts for kids who might not otherwise receive presents. Here are a few programs through which you can help provide gifts to kids who need them:

  1. One Simple Wish has a list of wishes from foster youth. The wishes are compiled by social workers and other professionals who work with children. You can contribute toward fulfilling a wish via their website or cover an entire wish yourself.
  2. Call your local Salvation Army to see if they have an Angel Tree Program, which distributes toys to kids in need. You can use the site’s zip code search to find your location, but you will need to call (scroll to find the zip code tool). Some locations will allow businesses to take an entire tree for their lobby. (The tree is full of wishes on paper angels, and employees fulfill the wishes.)
  3. Operation Santa. The Postal Service’s Operation Santa program started in 1912 when Post- master General Frank Hitchcock authorized local postmasters to allow postal employees and citizens to respond to letters to Santa. Operation Santa, which operates across the US, provides the opportunity to give gifts to kids who write to Santa. You can browse letters online and choose a letter you’d like to answer with a gift. The post office does not evaluate the letters for worthiness.
  4. You can drop off a new toy at a local Toys for Tots distribution location or you can donate online towards Toys for Tots. The U.S. Marine Corps Reserve distributes the toys across the U.S.
  5. If you’re looking for more options, other great places to contact are your local children’s hospital and your local homeless shelter.Here’s an uplifting story about how one present from a holiday gift program—a small guitar—inspired Jimmy Barber to grow up to help thousands of kids.
  6. Letter writing is an easy way to make people’s day.

  7. Send cards to lonely seniors. When he was 13-years-old Jacob Cramer started Love for Our Elders, which distributes letters to American seniors via senior centers and nonprofit organizations. You send them your handwritten cards, and they distribute them to seniors. Letters have come in from all over including Asia and Scotland.
  8. You can also send mail to Cards for Hospitalized Kids, which delivers the cards to children in US hospitals. These are great activities for individuals, families and classrooms.
  9. Write a quick thank you note to the people who serve you every day – mail carrier, trash collectors, etc. This is an especially good activity for our kids to remind them of people they might take for granted.
  10. Think of the amazing people in your life. Take an hour to write those people a letter telling them why they’re awesome. Wouldn’t you love to get a letter like that?
  11. Looking for more ideas about how to spread kindness? These ideas are from my book, HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time. This National Bestseller and Canadian Book Club Awards Finalist is filled with true stories about how one small deed can make a world of difference. Learn more.

    Adopt military families.

  12. Military families often have a very tight budget, and could use some help over the holidays. Soldiers Angels provides a way for us to contribute and show our gratitude by providing some gifts for military kids and parents. This program is offered by Soldiers Angels. You pay $12 to cover overall expenses as well as a $50-$100 food gift card and $35-$50 gifts for every child in the family.“We want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for going out of your way to help our family during Christmas. It isn’t easy needing help. But it was amazing to tell my wife ‘Look at the Goodwill of the American People.’ My girls were very happy and excited. We can’t say enough to express our gratitude. It was probably the best Christmas in many years. We really were blown away by the blessings! God Bless you.” – Mark and Family
  13. Earn money for charities without changing your buying habits

  14. When you buy gifts from one of 1,700 participating online retailers, you can use iGive to have that retailer donate money to your favorite charity (again, at no cost to you). This includes major retailers like Apple, Bed Bath & Beyond, and others.
  15. Clean up your house and help…

  16. Get ready for the new, by getting rid of the old . . . Use those boxes piling up from your online gift buying to pack up clothes, household items, games or other items you no longer need, and Givebackbox.com will provide a prepaid shipping label so you can have the items shipped to a nonprofit at no charge. This can be done from any state in the US. If you choose the charity to which you’d like to send your items you pay for shipping. If you send it to Give Back Box and let them distribute to nonprofits, the shipping is free.
  17. The Salvation Army will pick items up from your house (pickup is only in certain geographies, so check their zip code search feature). Donations to the Salvation Army support their adult rehabilitation centers.
  18. You can donate all sorts of items you no longer use to various nonprofits. Here is a detailed list of where to donate clothes, furniture, old phones, inkjet cartridges, children’s clothes and books, appliances, electronics, cars, eyeglasses and more.
  19. Donate a small sum of money to a charity you love.

    Don’t think a small donation can make a huge difference? Read this inspirational story about a donation of $15 a month that had an incredible ripple effect, changing the lives of over 300 families. You can, of course, also donate a larger amount that can change a life. (I know the amounts below aren’t small, but how awesome that a few hundred dollars can completely transform a life.)

  20. Miracle Feet funds surgeries to cure Clubfoot. 1 in every 750 kids worldwide is born with club foot – a deformity that left untreated leads to inability to walk. Over 1 million kids have untreated clubfoot. In many countries, disability leads to neglect, abuse and inability to have a decent life. Those countries are often the ones that don’t have the resources for treatment. $500 will treat one child’s clubfoot, and change that child’s life forever.
  21. Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP) cures blindness by providing a 10-minutes surgery that fixes cataracts. HCP has taken a procedure that costs $3,000 in the US and has brought that cost down to under $200 in developing nations. So far, HCP has helped restore sight to about 500,000 people in Nepal, Tibet, Pakistan, India, Bhutan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, and North Korea. It costs $25 for the materials for each surgery. If we look at all of their nonprofit’s costs it comes out to about $200 per person cured of blindness. Keep in mind that those costs include routine eyecare for close to two million people and training eye surgeons around the world who go on to help thousands of additional patients. So, the cost to cure blindness in one person is actually much less than $200. A bargain for curing blindness and a great investment!
  22. Help teachers

  23. Help a teacher get the supplies needed for class. href=”https://www.donorschoose.org/”>DonorsChoose.org let’s you support schools and teachers in your community so students can get the tools, supplies and experiences they need for a great education. You scroll through the requests of different teachers and choose the one you’d like to support. Here’s an opportunity where a small donation will make a big difference.
  24. Help a neighbor

  25. “Can I pick something up for you?” Everyone is so stressed over the holidays. If you’re going to the store, call a neighbor you think could use a break and ask if she’d like you to pick something up for her while you’re at the store.
  26. Provide a small gift and note to a neighbor or friend. A woman on our street gives our son a holiday basket every year. It probably costs $5, but it makes our son (and us) ecstatic.
  27. Collect change in a jar all year (or at this point for the month of December). At the end of the month, give the jar anonymously to someone who could benefit from the money. This tradition is called a Christmas Jar and is from a fantastic book, Christmas Jars.
  28. Support entrepreneurs.

  29. Support an entrepreneur through a loan via Kiva. The loan will support an entrepreneur in poverty. 97% of the loans are repaid and your contribution can be as little as $25.
  30. Global Giving is a platform that allows you to make a small donation to a global nonprofit you choose. It’s fun to scroll through the nonprofits and decide where you’d like to make an impact.
  31. Be a cheerleader.

  32. When you see people doing something right, tell them. It’s always a great time to give out compliments, but since the holidays can be stressful – your compliments might be even more appreciated than usual. If you have something nice to say, then say it!

Looking for more ideas about how to spread kindness? These ideas are from my book, HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time. This National Bestseller and Canadian Book Club Awards Finalist is filled with true stories about how one small deed can make a world of difference. “Elegant and wise” (Deepak Chopra). “The most uplifting and life-affirming book in years” (Forbes). Learn more about HumanKind.

In addition to the good deeds listed above, check out these 103 Random Acts of Kindness.

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