Marci Shimoff has kindly included One Million Acts Of Kindness in her new book; Love for No Reason. Marci is a New York Times best selling author with her; Chicken Soup for the Soul series and Happy for No Reason. I was sent an advance copy of Love for No Reason and it is a recommended read for everyone.

Tomorrow is the launch of Marci Shimoff’s new book; Love for No Reason. I am honored that she has included One Million Acts Of Kindness’ mission in this book. Please support her book and my mission by buying a copy for as many people in your life as possible.

The students at Millridge have been busy this fall creating wonderful drawings and colorings, telling of acts of kindness that they have been performing. One hundred twenty three children created art like the one pictured above. All of them could have been chosen to be today’s picture, this one, with two very important words, seemed to sum up my visit to their school.
Kindness is learned as an infant with the spoken word. These two words, some of the first twenty or so learned, which become part of a child’s vocabulary, are taught by the parent and are the beginning of the respect a child learns, for those who give the nurturing needed to survive. Kindness 101; the very foundation of respect a child should experience on an ongoing basis, creates an awareness that should be learned at the earliest age possible.
Thank you to everyone who made my visit to Millridge a very special one.

I love this school. The students at this Mayfield Heights, Ohio elementary school are learning lessons of kindness each and every day, and it shows. It is in keeping with what the children are learning from their parents. Every teacher and administrator at this school is involved in seeing that kindness is one of the goals the children are involved in remembering. One of this school’s kindness projects is raising money to feed the hungry. In each of the last 3 years the total nears closer to the two thousand dollar total.
Today, Dr. Spencer Wiersman, Principal of Millridge, sat in on one of the 7 presentations and read the first Bogart Book to 2 of the fourteen classes. This sort of activity is commonplace with everyone at Millridge and it fits the school’s motto: “Every Child, Every Day,” to a tee.

“It’s Bogart” was the call which echoed down the halls of Millridge School as we walked to the classrooms of 8 classes of young students. It is easy to see who the “top dog” is on The Kindness Bus Tour. Another year, another three hundred sixty five days of playing second fiddle to Bogart; I wouldn’t have it any other way.
This is a 2nd visit to these same children at this school. Anita Davidson, the school’s Guidance Counselor, penciled us in after our visit this past fall. It was nice to talk with the children about our previous visit and all that has happened along our travels during the previous 4 months. The children were treated to an advance viewing of the first book in Bogart Book Series. I think Bogart has a hit on his hands..paws.

Emails of the same subject matter seem to find my email box quite often. The trio of such, appeared in the last couple of days. They could have all been titled, “Be Kind all the Time.” The core of the emails address the need to have kindness in your heart every waking moment. To perform a kind act once in a while convinces some that this is all which is needed to be done to be considered kind. One of the emails brought up a fact which I had heard previously, that some gang members consider themselves kind because they had performed a kind act recently.
Constant mind-set is the goal of One Million Acts Of Kindness because the goal takes a lifetime of days filled with kindness by an individual. When one’s day is filled with nothing but kind acts and thoughts, there is no room for hatred, no room for apathy and certainly no room for gang-related activity.
It’s time to turn a big corner for the good of children. If an example isn’t shown, a lesson isn’t learned. This is tantamount to the growth of goodness in children. It’s hard to be good all of the time, but it is also easy to get back on the right road when one takes the wrong turn.
I am learning of some wonderful programs along my travels which teach in the same manner as what I am trying to accomplish in my in-classroom programs to children. The teaching is that no kind act should go unnoticed. Nothing but “Positive Peer Pressure” should be shown to one another.

One Million Acts Of Kindness Week begins in 43 days. We are on track to have over two-thousand groups take part across the globe. To date, seven different countries are represented by participants. A couple of days ago, a group of 17 year olds from Haiti signed up for the week. Needless to say, I am inspired. I now have a goal of as many nations being represented as possible. Plant a seed of kindness in your country and watch what happens.
One Million Acts Of Kindness Week begins on February 14th, please tell as many people as possible. Details about the week are in the right-hand column of the homepage of this website.