A special day in February has been nationally and, in some parts, globally scheduled to be the annual Random Acts of Kindness Day but do we know what it is, when it began, and where it all began?
CanadaHelps.org highlights the day's purpose as to extend kindness, recognize kind acts and promote them across communities on Feb. 17. Random kind acts have been said to lift spirits and encourage positivity.
Many histories of the day saturate the internet, but according to the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, the movement began in San Francisco over 40 years ago.
Pioneered by the writer and activist Anne Herbert in 1982, the movement's first known record marked the beginning of the kindness-themed evolution that has sporadically spread across the globe.
The inspiring article was titled Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Acts of Senseless Beauty and was published in CoEvolution Quarterly, a magazine and periodical.
The wave eventually became the source of comfort in Canada after Barb Danelesko was murdered in Edmonton in 1994 during a home invasion gone wrong.
According to a Peace Arc News article written in 2019, Debbie Riopol says her sister, Colleen Ring, used the movement's approach to help her students cope with the tragedy. Realizing the devastation that Danelesko's murder brought to the community, the Edmonton elementary school teacher suggested responding to that random act of violence with a random act of kindness.
Riopol said her sister started a program called 'Kids for Kindness' at Edmonton's Mary Hanley Catholic Elementary, where she worked, a project for kids to promote kindness. After the kids' positive response to it, the Grade 2 teacher and her sister approached the then St. Albert mayor in 1996 to ask for a week to be proclaimed The Random Acts of Kindness Week, and it was approved.
The day was acclaimed, and many other places all over Canada have honoured it by preaching and supporting kindness in their communities.
The national day calendar shares common quotes related to inspiring kind acts, and the one by Aesop stood out.
"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."
With no criteria and limits, Random Acts of Kindness Day invite and encourage friendliness and peaceful harmony to reign.
