Random acts of kindness help heal
SARATOGA SPRINGS — After the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., brought national shock and sorrow, people began to rally with random acts of kindness across the country and locally.
NBC News correspondent Ann Curry launched the “26 Acts of Kindness” campaign with a tweet Monday that asked people to do 26 acts of kindness to remember those killed in Newtown. She asked followers to tweet their acts with the hashtag # 26Acts, and people around the world have responded with their good deeds.
The movement is a way to “help heal us all,” Curry wrote on the NBC News Web site.
Jenny Witte of mamatoga.com, who also reports on social events for The Saratogian as a Toga Tattler, brought the idea to the local level by starting a “26 Random Acts of Kindness in Saratoga Springs” page on Facebook. To honor the memory of the 20 children and six teachers killed at
Sandy Hook Elementary School, people are encouraged to perform 26 kind acts, often anonymously.
Witte said she was inspired by Newtown’s Robbie Parker who spoke publicly about the loss of his 6- year- old daughter, Emilie, who was one of the schoolchildren killed. Parker focused on forgiveness and on moving forward in a positive spirit.
“As we move on from what happened here, what happened to so many people, let it not turn into something that defines us; let it be something that inspires us to be better, to be more compassionate and humbler people,” he said.
The random acts range from big projects to small gestures to downright merry and quirky things.
“Yesterday, a group of us did a ‘ flash mob’ at the Wilton mall play area,” wrote mamatoga. com reader Becky. “We showed up and cleaned the whole thing with Lysol wipes, and then let the kids run wild. Perhaps we saved some little ones from some sort of cooties.”
Witte and her husband, Sean O’Keefe, have involved their whole family in the random acts. She said her three children enjoy any random act that involves
‘I want this to have touched at least 100 people by New Year’s Day.’ Ashleigh Gray, on her initiative to have participants leave an anonymous gift for someone and have that person pay the gesture forward
coloring and sending things out.
“We made cookies for our new neighbors, and now the kids want to make cookies for everyone,” she said.
Instead of universal baking, the family plans to serve dinner at the Senior Citizen Center.
O’Keefe has been so supportive of the 26 acts that he asked Witte to return the golf clubs she’d bought him for Christmas and donate the money instead.
Many other gestures are touching Witte as her blog draws in new participants. One woman put herself on the bone marrow registry. When a shopper paid for the groceries of the woman behind her in line at Hannaford, the woman cried and said she would be sure to pay it forward.
Another local woman, Ashleigh Gray, has started a movement called a Blind Date with Christmas Kindness. Although this might prompt a vision of an evening out with a department store Santa, the “date” is simpler. Participants need only leave someone an anonymous gift, with no strings attached. Gray’s only hope is that everyone pays it forward.
Gift packages have included household and school supplies, groceries, new clothing, games and other gifts sent anonymously, based on families’ needs.
“I want this to have touched at least 100 people by New Year’s Day,” Gray said.
To participate, search on Facebook for the “Blind Date with Christmas Kindness” page, and post stories and photos of gifts directly on the page.
To note your own acts of kindness on the local 26 Acts Facebook page Witte set up, go to mamatoga. com and look for the link.
“For me and for a lot of parents, it was important to find a way to dispel the scary, horrible emotions from Newtown,” Witte said. “Now if we can bring even the smallest bit of positive light back into the world, we will have done good work. We can’t completely come to terms with what happened at Sandy Hook, but we can support our community and our country.”