Random Acts of Kindness Day

February 17, 2020 by Noah Holland

Random Acts of Kindness Day is being celebrated across the globe on 17th February.

The phrase “Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty” entered our vocabulary in 1985, when the American writer Anne Herbert scrawled it on a placemat in a Californian restaurant. This phrase was swiftly popularised, and, in 1995, Random Acts of Kindness Day was first celebrated in the US, before spreading to New Zealand in 2004, where it took the form that it has today.

Today, all around the globe, people commit acts of generosity on 17th February as part of National Acts of Kindness Day.

But what Random Acts of Kindness can you perform? Even the smallest act of generosity has the potential to change one’s day, or even a life. It can be something as simple as complimenting a co-worker or giving some change to a homeless person. 

Already, 815 people have paid for a stranger’s coffee, and 212 have helped carry someone’s shopping. Committing an Act of Kindness can inspire others to proceed in the same way, creating a domino effect as each act causes more to occur. The recent hashtag “Feed the Deed”, starting in February 2014, involves a chain of people nominating each other to commit acts of kindness. This trend has spread to over 30 countries.

And helping others doesn’t just benefit them; it’s also proven to have a powerful and positive effect on our brains. Committing a Random Act of Kindness can give us a chemical high, making it just as beneficial for us as it is for them.

Some Random Acts of Kindness that you could perform could include:

• Paying for the person in front of you in a queue.

• Depositing food in a food bank.

• Donating to charity or giving to a local homeless person.

• Stand up so someone else can sit on public transport.

• Help an elderly person with shopping or other daily chores.