Promoting, sharing and uniting kindness
Acts of Kindness
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Leo Buscaglia, 1924 - 1998

Below are some examples of kind acts you can perform but the possibilities are infinite. We would love to hear your ideas too, please contact us here.

Environmental
  • Turn the tap off while you’re brushing your teeth
  • Undertake a litter pick in your local area
  • When possible, share travel with those who live near you
  • Walk or cycle to reduce your carbon footprint
  • Join or start a recycling club
  • When renewing garden equipment bear in mind its energy and carbon efficiency
  • Volunteer for an environmental charity or organisation
  • Make a vegetable patch and grow your own produce
  • Turn off electrical items at the plug socket
  • Plant a tree – fast-growing, deciduous trees (that require little maintenance) provide most effective carbon capture
  • Buy recycled and recyclable products
  • Choose reusable products rather than disposable
  • Help to create a new green space in the community
  • Donate clothes to a charity shop or offer them to friends instead of throwing them out
  • Recycle your printer cartridges to avoid damaging the environment
  • Only take or cook as much food as you can eat to avoid wasting it
  • Turn the lights off when you leave a room
  • Buy locally sourced, in season and unprocessed produce
  • When buying products look out for labels that show a product has been produced with more consideration for the natural world
  • Collect rainwater and use it to water your plants
  • Hang on to your mobile phone for longer
  • Avoid excess packaging and plastic
  • Take your own bag shopping or buy a ‘bag for life’
  • Grow perennial plants over large areas to help carbon capture
  • Choose alternative household products that are produced with fewer harmful chemicals.
  • Donate leftover paint to a ‘paint reuse’ organisation or dispose it safely through your local council
  • Make your own cleaning products from everyday ingredients like lemon juice and vinegar
  • Avoid peat-based compost
  • Choose energy efficient electronic equipment
  • Learn how to compost
  • Plant a tree or a hedge in your garden
  • Free-cycle, post anything that you don’t need anymore online, free to collector
  • Buy in bulk and use concentrated products – so that you use less packaging

Community
  • Sign the petition asking the United Nations to make ‘World Kindness Day’ (13th November) a globally recognised day
  • Help an elderly neighbour take the bins out
  • Send an appreciative text to a friend or family member
  • Buy a coffee for the person behind you
  • Call and chat to someone you think might be lonely
  • Let a car go in front of you, particularly on a busy road
  • Offer to look after a friend’s pet while they are on holiday
  • If you walk past someone moving into a new home, offer to help
  • When you’re on a busy train or bus, offer your seat to someone who looks like they need it more than you
  • Pass on a good book when you’re finished with it
  • Pay the toll for the driver behind you
  • Take a minute to help someone even if you’re in a rush
  • Offer to do a food shop for an elderly neighbour
  • Help a mother carry her pushchair upstairs
  • Help a friend pack when their moving house
  • Take the time to get to know your colleagues
  • Say good morning to everyone on your way into work and good evening on your way home
  • Surprise one person a month with a treat.
  • Send a thank you email to a friend or colleague
  • Eat lunch with someone new
  • Take time to yourself when you feel stressed – go for a short walk or for a coffee
  • Clean the communal refrigerator, microwave or oven in your workplace
  • Offer to help colleagues with their work when you are able
  • Learn the names of people in your building who you see everyday
  • Hold the door open for those behind you
  • Sign up to the organ donor register
  • Ask people to donate to your chosen charity instead of giving a gift on your birthday
  • Give someone a compliment – it can make their day, week or year!
  • When making a tea or coffee, offer to make one for anyone else who would like one
  • Surprise your colleagues with a kind post-it note on their desk
  • Bring in treats for your colleagues
  • Offer to buy a drink or some food for a homeless person
  • Go through your possessions and donate items you no longer use to charity
  • Buy music where the profit goes to charity
  • Make yourself know to anyone elderly or vulnerable in your community so they have somewhere to turn if they need help
  • Become a pen friend to someone less fortunate than you
  • Provide a helping hand to those less able to cross a road
  • Volunteer at a nursing or care home
  • Spend time with someone who might be lonely
  • Help an elderly person with their shopping
  • Leave money in a parking metre, ticket or vending machine for the next person
  • When paying for yourself, offer to pay for someone else too (e.g. in a coffee shop or at a train station)
  • Write a letter to a member of the armed services thanking them for their service
  • Join or set up a local community group with a view to getting to know your neighbours and increasing the sense of care and community in the area
  • Write a blog about kindness in society
  • Support charities and good causes on your social media pages
  • Give food coupons to a homeless person
  • Take the time to really listen to someone
  • Give blood
  • Make sure something is ethically sourced when buying it
  • Donate coats and blankets to a homeless shelter particularly in the winter
  • Share positive posts on your social media pages
  • Pay the road/bridge toll for the vehicle driving behind you
  • Cook a meal for someone else – e.g. deliver a lasagne to a new mother
  • Tell the manager when you receive good service
  • Surprise a loved one with a kind note e.g. in their lunch box
  • Donate creative items, toys or games to a children’s hospital
  • Offer to return someone’s shopping trolley in the car park
  • Say thank you more
  • Write a note of encouragement and place it inside a book or magazine in waiting room
  • Leave a pile of pennies by a fountain for passers by to make a wish
  • Write positive online reviews for places you have visited or businesses you have gone to
  • Pay someone a compliment (in person and via social media)
  • Write a thank you letter to a teacher who stands out from your education
  • Wash a friend or family member’s car or bike for them
  • Buy a lottery ticket and give it to a stranger
  • Pop-in and say hello to new neighbours
  • If you enjoy your meal at a restaurant, send your compliments to the chef
  • In your spare time, volunteer at a charity shop
  • Spend time to get to know your neighbours
  • Borrow or hire products you only need to use occasionally
  • Register with the Mailing Preference Service to avoid unwanted junk mail being sent to your home
  • Smile at a stranger
  • Buy fair-trade products
  • Let someone go in front of you in the queue
  • Pick out good causes on the internet and ‘like’ or ‘follow’ them
  • Volunteer at your local health centre
  • Put your loose change in a charity box

Nature
  • Adopt a rescued animal as your pet
  • Write a blog about kindness to nature
  • When gardening, plant different types and species to support a range of wildlife
  • Attract bugs and amphibians to your garden by creating a woodpile
  • Feed ducks in the park
  • Try to reduce your meat consumption e.g. have a meat-free day
  • Make a bird house and leave bird seed out, particularly on wintry days
  • Rescue an insect when it is trapped in the bath
  • Take your pet for a walk and give it verbal reinforcements
  • Donate to a nature charity (this can be one focused on animals, sea-life, conservation of natural habitats etc).
  • Make a house for hedgehogs
  • Volunteer for a nature charity
  • In winter; if you have a pond, make sure you check it every day for ice. If a pond freezes over, carefully place a saucepan of hot water on the surface to gently melt a hole in the ice to protect the wildlife
  • Disturb piles of garden rubbish before having a bonfire to check that no animals, like hedgehogs, are hiding there
  • Get involved with recording animals and plants where you live
  • Use pesticides only as a last resort
  • Help search for a missing pet
  • Donate old towels or blankets to an animal shelter
  • Make a bee home and fix it in your garden
  • Put up a nest box up during National Nest Box Week to help increase the number of suitable nesting spaces for birds
  • Take part in a wildlife survey – surveys are essential for assessing the status and needs of wildlife