Practicing kindness sows seeds of hope and happiness.
www.PositivityMatters.org
Everyone is encouraged to do five acts of kindness between MLK Jr. Day, the third Monday of January, and March 20th, the International day of Happiness. The midpoint of this annual generosity journey is February 17th, Random Acts of Kindness Day!
Seeds of Kindness – Seeds of Happiness launched at the premier performance of Secret Kindness Agents and the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service 2025 at UNO.
Suggestions:
- Kids are encouraged to choose a secret kindness agent name, plan their acts of kindness with a friend, do their acts of kindness anonymously and with a friend or solo, and talk with a friend about the experience after each act, to refine our kindness skills for future kindness.
- Teens and adults can take the free strengthsfinder at www.viacharacter.org.
- How can we translate our top strengths into acts of kindness?
- Have a conversation with a friend about one another’s strengths, and help each other to plan your acts of kindness.
- Do five acts of kindness, anonymously or not.
- Create a kindness card (click here for a template) for each act.
- Write a sentence about what the act was.
- Write another sentence or two reflecting on what feelings were generated and about any insights you may have had for future acts of kindness.
- If you already volunteer, please make a kindness card for each of your volunteer endeavors, and write about what they mean to you.
- Bring your cards to your community’s International Day of Happiness celebration (Omaha 3/20/2025 | Lincoln 3/22/2025) for a kindness idea exchange!
- Pick up kindness cards at Constellation Studios 2055 O St, Lincoln, NE (check out some behind the scenes images).
- We will be planting the wildflower cards later this spring to make a few kindness wildflower gardens.
How will our seeds of kindness bloom?
Hope:
“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Hope is a perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways.” ~Prof. C.R. (Rick) Snyder
Kindness:
“Life’s persistent and most urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?’” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
Forms of Kindness:
- Playful: Organize a block party or open-mic stand-up comedy event!
- Compassionate: Volunteer at a hospital or soup kitchen.
- Generative: Become a youth mentor or coach a youth sports team.
Friendship:
“We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but the positive affirmation of peace.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr. Anti-War Conference, Los Angeles, California, February 25, 1967.
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All [people] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be…” ~Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” April 16, 1963
Click here for a kindness card template.
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