For every pound you pledge to lose through June 30, 2010, the Pound For Pound Challenge will donate 14¢ to Feeding America® — enough to deliver one pound of groceries to a local food bank. $800,000 maximum donation.

Check it out here Wake Up To Hunger

Our hats are off to General Mills and NBC. This cause and effort is definitely worthy of our 5 Star Kindness Rating.

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Talk about community, in Lansing, Michigan they have elevated this to a new level. A tiny rural school district where nine out of 10 students come from needy families is offering high school graduates $5,000 a year for four years to fulfill their college dreams.

Baldwin Superintendent Randy Howes will hold a ceremony on Tuesday to launch the program to 25 students set to graduate next spring. All students in Baldwin schools will be covered by the new scholarship offer of up to $20,000.

The community of just more than 1,000 people is the first in Michigan to follow the example of the highly popular Kalamazoo Promise, an anonymously funded scholarship that has attracted new residents to the city eager to get all or most of their children’s tuition paid at public universities or community colleges in Michigan.

Kalamazoo’s program has inspired at least 19 similar programs nationwide since its inception in November 2005, while more than 50 other communities are exploring the idea. Ten Michigan communities have gotten state approval this year to set up scholarship programs. But Baldwin’s is the only one ready to go as the new school year gets under way.

Community needs to raise $120,000 Continue Reading »
Michigan town providing scholarships to all

Author: Natasha Jones / Black Press

All the meanness in the world, from abuse, to bullying, to gang violence, can be attributed to people who “have lost touch with their heart.”

That’s the message of Brock Tully, a Vancouver writer and speaker whose has pedalled his message around North America not once, but three times.

“I really believe that the solution to all our challenges, gang violence, crystal meth, abuse and bullying of kids… is creating a culture of kindness.”

Tully, 62, is cycled through Surrey and Langley last Monday, on the last leg of his “Kindness, Cycle it Forward” tour, begun in Vancouver in September.

Along an 18,000-kilometre route that included Salt Lake City and Phoenix, Arizona, through the southern U.S. states and back up the west coast, he has arranged presentations to school children about bullying and kindness.

“It is kind of an anti-bullying presentation, that is inspiring, but it focuses on a solution, which is kindness.”

He makes his talks interesting and instructive, through multi-media presentations and juggling acts, and he aims at making children understand why bullying happens, and how to stop it, he said. Continue Reading »
Cycling for Kindness

This is a pretty cool story about a youngster that makes scarves and donates proceeds to World Vision and other charities to help under privileged kids. www.scarfaid.com is the website and sometimes our children can best demonstrate on how to perform acts of kindness and place focus on what is truly important in life and that is helping others.

Here is an excerpt from World Vision that Gina at ScarfAid wanted to share with our team:

Dear Gina,

Thank you for your life-changing gift of 2 Hens and a Rooster from World Vision’s Gift Catalogue! Your gift will be a blessing to a child and family in need, and a truly meaningful way to celebrate the promise of hope and new life.

Thank you for giving the gift of hope to children and families in need around the world.

Sincerely,

Dave Toycen
President, World Vision Canada

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We also found this passage the kindness in motion team wanted to share with our readers:

“In response to all he has done for us, let us outdo each other in being helpful and kind to each other and in doing good” (Hebrews 10:24 TLB).

We might be different but we can still reach out and help each other in  a time of need.

Here is an act of kindness worth mentioning, Kamloops Alliance Church parishioners donated over 5000 lbs of Food at a ThanksGiving weekend service for the Kamloops Food Bank.

The following week Kamloops Rotary group collected another 20,000 lbs of Food for the Food Bank. With the food bank shelves looking pretty bare this latest infusion will help get them past the toughest part of the year.

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Conn. motorists get cash, card from unknown pair in green T-shirts, caps

Associated Press
PLAINVILLE, Conn. – They don’t climb tall buildings in a single bound, but the mysterious “Gas Men” are super heroes to some fed-up motorists.

The unknown duo were dressed in sunglasses, baseball caps, khakis and matching green golf shirts when they gave Gayle Kilburn a $100 bill on Thursday as she filled up her car at a Citgo in Plainville.

They also handed her a card that read “Re-Fueling Our Community” and was signed “The Gas Men.”

With fuel prices where they are today what a great sentiment or random act of kindness these Men performed.

The Kindness in Motion Team have awarded this story the prestigous 5 star rating.
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Metal-detector hobbyist found trinket 12 years ago, then went sleuthing

Credit: Associated Press
LUDINGTON, Mich. – A woman who lost her class ring in Lake Michigan in 1954 has it back, thanks to a metal-detector hobbyist.

Robert Savage told the Ludington Daily News for a story Saturday that he found the ring about 12 years ago but only recently began looking for its owner.

He did a bit of detective work by looking at the initials and the year on the ring. He found a Ludington High yearbook for 1955 and found that Jan Pedersen was the only person in the class with the right initials.

Now Jan Zacharda, she says she had forgotten about the ring she lost at Ludington State Park. And she’s even more puzzled that Savage found it in a lake about a dozen miles away.

Zacharda now wears the ring on her index finger, where it fits better.

This is what Kindness in Motion is all about, going out of your way make someone else’s day. Kindness – Pass it On!
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11-year-old Boy Scout displays an act to make parents proud even though his own wallet is still missing.

DORR, Mich. — When 11-year-old Boy Scout, J.R. Bouterse found someone’s wallet containing $800 inside, he understood the empty feeling the person who lost it was going through.

Only a few weeks before, he had lost his own wallet and the $45 it contained.

Bouterse immediately told an adult about his discovery, which was turned over to a law-enforcement official and returned to its grateful owner.

“We’re just so proud of him,” said the boy’s mother, Michelle Bouterse, 41. “We can’t say enough.”

To reward the boy, the Michigan State Police threw a pizza party Monday night, not only for the law-abiding child but for all 30 Scouts in Troop 90.

Surprise guest
Another guest at the party, to J.R.’s surprise, was 20-year-old Jessica Cutler, the wallet’s owner, who wanted to personally thank him for his act of honesty.

“I can’t believe someone would find a wallet with that much money in it and not take some,” she said. “A lot of people maybe wouldn’t have done that same thing. I’m just glad he found it and not someone else.”

J.R. found the wallet while leaving a Scout meeting at the church about a week ago.

“I knew exactly how she felt,” he said. Unfortunately, J.R. wallet has not been returned which makes the story all the more incredible.

What a great story and we look forward to posting more of the same.
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