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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
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