Faith In Action: Acts Of Kindness
Part of Wonderful Welcome
Preparation for Activity
Use your own ideas, the ideas provided in Description of Activity below, or ideas from the following websites to help the children's planning. Some sites include:
- The website of the organization, Random Acts of Kindness.
- A website which presents lessons and education about altruism in different faiths and in the secular community, Learning to Give.
- The Kind Spring website, a portal dedicated to small acts of kindness.
Description of Activity
Engage the children in brainstorming and then implementing "random acts of kindness." One option is making "feel good" cards for people in the congregation. The religious educator or minister can help identify people who would benefit from receiving a "feel good" card. The children may want to deliver the cards themselves. Another option is to send the cards anonymously. In that case, you might say something like:
It does feel good when we hand someone a card or special gift. But, part of feeling good about giving can be that we give when no one knows we did it. Why would we want to give without telling anyone? Because giving feels good and sometimes it is more important to help someone than get credit. For example, when your parents give money to an organization like the American Red Cross, they might be helping people all over the country. The people they help will never know who helped them, but it feels good to your parents to have made a difference.