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A random act of kindness is a selfless act performed by a person or persons wishing to either assist or cheer up an individual or in some cases an animal. There will generally be no reason other than to make people smile, or be happier. Either spontaneous or planned in advance, random acts of kindness are encouraged by various communities. An oft-cited example of a random act of kindness is, when paying the toll at a toll booth on a highway, to pay the toll for the vehicle behind you as well.

[edit] Presence in popular culture

• Radio DJ Brent Farris KZST in Santa Rosa California has been sending his listeners out to do Random Acts of Kindness for over 10 years. They include, Tipping the person at the McDonalds Drive through window $100, Paying for Parking tickets of strangers, even giving $100 dollars to a person who cleaned up after their dog in a park. He does it once a week.

• The phrase "Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty" may have been coined by peace activist Anne Herbert. Herbert says she wrote it on a placemat at a Sausalito restaurant in 1982 or 1983.^[1]

• A book, Random Acts of Kindness, was released by Conari Press in 1993.

• Established in 1995 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation promotes spreading kindness. ^[2]

• The movie Pay It Forward (2000) is largely based on Random Acts of Kindness.

• The French film Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) (Amélie) follows a young woman who engages in various random – and often anonymous – acts of kindness.

• Join Me is a book written in 2002 by humorist Danny Wallace; in which he tell 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".

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

• Scott Mills is a British DJ on BBC Radio 1 who used the term as the name of a regular feature of his programme.

• Talk Radio Host David Stein of The Celebration of Life Through Sports has also declared every Monday "Random Act of Kindness Day".

• Radio program Kfm Breakfast ran a "Random Act of Kindness Day" on the June winter solstice in 2007^[3], collecting ±50,000kgs of canned food for Cape Town's homeless shelters.

• The One Million Random Acts of Kindness Campaign (RAK)^[4] launched on BBC Radio in 2008.

• The 2007 box-office failure Evan Almighty ends with Evan and his family on a weekend hiking trip when God reappears to Evan, telling him that the way to change the world is by doing one Act of Random Kindness ("ARK") at a time; the film's central message.

• Random Acts of Kindness is the title of the 9th track of Robbie Williams' 9th album, Intensive care.

• Acts of Random Kindness[1] (aka ARK) is a non profit organization based in Northern Ireland that encourages kind actions to others.

• The World Kindness Movement (WKM) [[2]] started in 1997 when representatives from several countries gathered at a kindness centered conference in Tokyo. Twenty countries are currently members of the WKM [[3]].

• Project Halo [[4]] is a show on www.flippish.com where they spread happiness through random acts of kindness. The show features simple acts ranging from giving free flowers, to free jeepney rides, even to helping carry grocery bags in a supermarket. The show debuted in September 2008 and currently has 5 episodes (as of March 2009).

• The BBC 1 London News ran a News item entitled 'Hampers at the Ready' following' The Kindness Offensive' event on the 22nd of December 2008, which saw founding members James Hunter & David Goodfellow, with help from a seventy strong group of volunteers, hand out over thirty-five tones of presents to the public at random, as well as other charities and community groups. The Kindness Offensive suggest and it is widely accepted that their event on the 22/12/08 was the UK's largest ever Random Act of Kindness.

• Karen McCombie's book The Seventeen Secrets of the Karma Club revolves aroung 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.

• Liam Byrne MP of the Cabinet Office said in the Sunday Times 28th of December 2008 of The Kindness Offensive,

"Few have better captured the new urge to give than The Kindness Offensive"

[edit] See also

• Altruism
• Kindness
• Parable of the Good Samaritan
• Random Acts of Kindness Day
• The Kindness Offensive

[edit] References

1. ^ Adair Lara, "Random Acts of Senseless Kindness",The San Francisco Chronicle, May 16, 1991
2. ^ The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation
3. ^ YouTube - 94.5 KFM Random Acts of Kindness Day
4. ^ One Million Random Acts of Kindness Campaign