Random act of kindness

A random act of kindness is a selfless act performed by a person or people wishing to either assist or cheer up an individual person or people. The phrase may have been coined by Anne Herbert, who says that she wrote "Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty" on a place mat at a Sausalito restaurant in 1982 or 1983. Either spontaneous or planned, random acts of kindness are encouraged by various communities.^{[citation needed]}

Examples of events or groups

• The Jewish concept of a mitzvah is used colloquially to mean a good deed or an act of kindness. Judaism teaches that "the world is built on kindness." Kabbalistic teaching sees kindness as emerging from the first of seven Divine emotional attributes; to be effective kindness must be balanced and considered, while mercy is also for the undeserving. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson told reporters that to bring the Moshiach sooner, people should "add in acts of goodness and kindness."

• In 2006, a Free Hugs Campaign was made popular by a music video on YouTube.

• A variety of radio hosts have used the term for events encouraged or sponsored by the shows, such as Brent Farris of KZST in California, Scott Mills on BBC Radio 1, David Stein of the Sporting News Radio, and Kfm Breakfast of 94.5 Kfm in South Africa.^{[citation needed]}

• The One Million Random Acts of Kindness Campaign (RAK) launched on BBC Radio in 2008.

• The BBC 1 London News ran a News item entitled 'Hampers at the Ready' following 'The Kindness Offensive' event on the 22 December 2008, which saw TKO (James Hunter, Benny Crane, Calum Teach and David Goodfellow), with help from a seventy strong group of volunteers, hand out over thirty-five tonnes of presents to the public at random, as well as many other charities and community groups. The Kindness Offensive suggests and it is widely accepted that their Christmas event on the 22/12/08 was the UK's largest ever random act of kindness.^{[citation needed]}

• An Australian TV-show called Random Acts of Kindness, on Channel 9, shows hosts Karl Stefanovic, Scott Cam and Simmone Jade Mackinnon giving gifts to people they identify as heroes.

• HelpOthers.org is the home of Smile Cards and a portal of kindness stories, ideas, and online groups. It allows people to send random notes of kindness to others.

• Join Me is a book written in 2002 by humorist Danny Wallace; in which he tells of the cult he started by accident, the group's purpose is to encourage members (called Joinees and collectively known as the KarmaArmy) to perform random acts of kindness, particularly on Fridays which are termed "Good Fridays". Wallace has also published a book called Random Acts of Kindness: 365 Ways to Make the World a Nicer Place.

• The Newton Project attempted to quantify the benefits of the Random Act of Kindness concept in order to motivate people to perform additional acts of kindness.

• Blip, a Swedish WoW player, bought his poor Irish friend a new headset; replacing his old poor quality one as a random act, separated by thousands of miles.
• Caffè sospeso

In fiction

• The 2007 movie Evan Almighty ends with God telling the main character, Evan, that the way to change the world is by doing one Act of Random Kindness ("ARK") at a time.

• Karen McCombie's book The Seventeen Secrets of the Karma Club revolves around two girls who (inspired by their favourite film Amelie) start up their 'Karma Club', the intention of which, is to do random acts of kindness anonymously.

See also

• Altruism
• Pay it forward
• Kindness
• Parable of the Good Samaritan
• The Sheep and the Goats
• Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness
• Random Acts of Kindness Day
• The Kindness Offensive
• Sympathy