Search Results for: community
Spread More Happiness in Your Community This March
With global unhappiness on the rise and more people experiencing feelings of worry, stress, loneliness, and sadness, it’s clear that we all need to pitch in and to do our part to make the world a happier place. Since 2013, Live Happy has been celebrating the International Day of Happiness (IDOH) on March 20 with a month-long #HappyActs campaign to bring awareness to happiness and well-being. This year’s #HappyActs theme is all about building stronger communities because improving the places where we live, work and play benefits us all.
Community can have many definitions but at its core, it is people helping people. When we all work together, we can enjoy a more harmonious life. Whether it’s checking in on an elderly neighbor, cleaning up your local park, or volunteering your time at a local animal shelter, we all have the responsibility to make a positive difference.
Every act of kindness has the chance to not only make the beneficiaries happy, but also the people who perform these acts. That’s a winning combination. During the month of March, Live Happy is calling on all Happy Activists to go to livehappy.com/happyacts to learn how to participate in this year’s IDOH 2023 celebration.
Here are just a few things you can do make sure you are spreading happiness to those in your community.
Host Your Own Happiness Wall
At, LiveHappy.com, you can find several ideas on how to create your own Happiness Wall, download a printable Happiness Wall that can be posted almost anywhere, or order Poster Happiness wall from the Live Happy store. It doesn’t matter what type of wall you create, just as long as you register it with us here. Join thousands of Happy Activists around the world by hosting Happiness Walls in public viewing areas, including parks, shopping malls and businesses. Classrooms and offices can be also great places for a Happiness Wall. Celebrating IDOH 2023 is a fun way to share happiness with your family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and community members.
Make #HappyActs a Happy Habit All Month Long
While acts of kindness should be positive habits practiced all year long, Live Happy is encouraging all Happy Activists to download their very own free #HappyActs calendar with a different act of kindness idea for each day of the month. That’s 31 #HappyActs all dedicated to making your community stronger. You can plant some flowers or vegetables in your community garden, leave a positive review for your favorite neighborhood business or just give someone a sincere compliment. These #HappyActs will not only make other happy, but your happiness will increase too. Don’t forget to let us know through your social media by using #LiveHappy and #HappyActs.
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Discovering the Power of Community With Peter Montoya
After leaving a successful career in the finance industry, Peter Montoya was concerned by the growing anxiety, depression and loneliness that we’re experiencing as a society. To help turn the tide on all of the negativity, he started Thrive Union, an organization whose mission is to help people go from loneliness and isolation to purposeful belonging. His free online videos provide a life school to teach us the things we need to know to have a thriving, happier life. Peter sat down to talk about why we need a life school and how it can help trigger global change.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why community is so important.
How sharing your purpose with others can improve your life.
What you can learn at “Life School.”
Links and Resources
Website: thriveunion.org
Facebook: @ThriveUnion
Watch their life school videos for a happier life on their Thrive Union channel.
Don't miss an episode! Live Happy Now is available at the following places:
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Community Gardens Grow Happiness
After a day full of sunshine, the deep scent of rich, moist earth gently rises over the coastal community garden of South Laguna, California. As far as the eye can see, every one of the 54 raised beds that surround Katie Babcock is overflowing with lush, green vegetables—beans, chard, arugula and beet greens. Tomato plants bolt up climbing towers toward the sun, potatoes send up sturdy green shoots to feed tubers underground, and there’s even a rumor that blueberries are setting tiny fruits that will one day—please God!—end up in a pie.
Some days it’s glorious just to be alive, and moving through the raised beds perched high on a sandy bluff above the Pacific Ocean is rapidly becoming one of those days.
Tucked among the village’s shops and homes, the garden is a gathering place in which Katie and about 100 local gardeners grow vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruits for their families—plus enough vegetables to help meet the needs of Friendship Shelter, a six-month residential program for the homeless.
They also gather for community potlucks, gardening workshops and work parties. But whether they’re eating, weeding, watering or just burying their noses in gardener Silia Hatzi’s roses, it’s clear that the group members are united by their love of dirt, the bonds of friendship, the healthy promise of fresh vegetables, a commitment to care for those in need—and the clear sense that what they do here on the bluff infuses them with a deep sense of happiness.
“Getting in the soil and making a bit of a mess and seeing a finished product is a joyful experience for me,” acknowledges Katie, an Australian production assistant who moved last year to South Laguna. “I grew up on a farm, and I really missed helping things grow. And not having a family here, well, I’d say the gardening community has become my family away from home.”
She laughs just thinking about the cast of characters she’s found working in the South Laguna garden. “The people are so kind, so encouraging, so welcoming—it’s given me a sense of place and purpose in the community. The days when we all get together and work and have a laugh…that’s who I am,” she says.
Sally Coffey, a retired college administrator who works with new gardeners, couldn’t agree more. When Sally decided to hang up her academic gloves, she realized that she’d been so busy for so many years that she didn’t even know her neighbors. “In this area, you either have to have a kid or a dog to get to know people,” she says. “I was concerned I wouldn’t have any friends to talk to once I left the college. Then one day I went to get breakfast at a coffee shop. I passed a bulletin board with a note on it that said some people were opening a community garden. They had one raised bed plot left. Well, I’d always loved the loamy smell of dirt—and when I was little, right after a rain, I’d go out and lick the sidewalk.”
So Sally called the one name on the note that she recognized, then ran over to his office and signed up for the plot. But not only did she get the plot, she got an invitation to the guy’s Halloween party. “He’d invited everybody in the neighborhood, including all the gardeners,” Sally recalls. “I didn’t have a costume, so I just ran home, painted some whiskers on my face and went.
I met a bunch of people from the garden. The next day I went down to the garden with them and built boxes for the raised beds.
She smiles. “It was instant family.”
The Love of Dirt
Hanging out with a bunch of great people in the fresh, coastal air is enough to make anyone happy. But scientists have long suspected that we also have an innate attraction to nature that has evolved over the millennia—and that just walking into a garden or contemplating a flower has the ability to trigger a cascade of neurotransmitters that balance us and bless us with happiness, according to the 2013 article “Gardening as a Mental Health Intervention: A Review” in the Mental Health Review Journal.
Some suspect that being in an environment with water, woods, plants and other natural materials that enhance our survival triggers this effect, while others wonder if being in a natural environment simply distracts us from the sometimes obsessive challenges of daily life, captivates our attention, shifts a bunch of neurotransmitters and allows us to relax.
But distraction, at least the type that captivates our attention in a kind of total absorption that psychologists call “fascination,” isn’t the looking-at-your-watch kind of thing. It’s far more intense, and the effect is as well.
“Watching a butterfly land on your hand or the wind moving through the trees—these are the kind of distractions that allow the brain to reboot itself,” explains Jean Larson, Ph.D., lead faculty for the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality and Healing, and manager of the university’s nature-based therapy arboretum.
Ancient and modern brain systems trigger electrical impulses. The neocortex—the part of the brain responsible for complex thinking and reasoning—becomes engaged, and the brain’s synapses start firing on all cylinders. It’s a kind of neurological rebalancing act that, as Jean says, “allows us to be in our happy place.”
Whether the calm happiness you feel in nature is the result of simply being in a life-supporting environment or rebooting your brain, the effect is powerful. Studies reveal that those who spend time in nature are less likely to be stressed or depressed, and that a few minutes working in a garden—even simply walking through one—can reduce severe depression and increase the ability to think, remember, plan and function. In a Norwegian study, for example, those with clinical depression who participated in a horticulture program cut their depression by 30 percent and increased their ability to think and function effectively by 14 percent.
Given those kinds of numbers, it’s heartbreaking to realize that most of us spend around 95 percent of our time indoors. Jean shakes her head. “We’re so disconnected from nature,” she says. “Yet researchers in Scotland have shown that it only takes 30 minutes of being in nature each day to have an effect on how we think and feel.”
The Children’s Sharing Garden
Carly Sciacca, a full-time mom who grew up in Laguna Beach as the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of serious gardeners, is well aware of the spiritual and emotional effects of gardening. “The garden is so joyful,” she says, “and gardening is so therapeutic, particularly when you go through hard times.”
That’s one of the reasons Carly brought her daughter, 7-year-old Alani, to plant, water, weed and harvest in the South Laguna community garden. Carly wanted Alani to know that when she hurts, she can drop her problems at the garden gate and get comfort from digging her hands in the soil. She can meditate on a ladybug, sit in the sun and breathe with the rhythm of the earth.
But Carly also wanted Alani to discover something else in the garden—the joy of helping others. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 49 million Americans are not sure where their next meal is coming from, while nearly 7 million are already hungry.
A natural organizer, Carly established a raised bed plot called “The Children’s Sharing Garden,” and invited parents in the community garden to bring their children to the plot every Sunday morning. Fifteen families responded, and Sunday mornings in the South Laguna garden have become a busy time. The children do most of the work—planting, weeding and meditating on the texture, smell and shape of everything that grows. It not only gives them an opportunity to immerse themselves in nature, but to also experience the joy of growing food for their families and others as well.
It took the parents a while to sort out a delivery system, but now every Thursday, Carly, Alani and a group of volunteers gather fresh vegetables from the children’s garden and from a community plot dedicated to raising food for the hungry. They place their bounty on a large table, bag their offering, then take it to the Friendship Shelter for distribution. Some of the vegetables go straight to the shelter’s kitchen where guest chefs prepare them for those enrolled in the shelter’s residential program for the homeless, while other vegetables are transported to area food shelves.
The Giving Garden
Kids are a big part of The Giving Garden in Carrollton, Texas, as well. Daisy Girl Scouts, Eagle Scouts, National Honor Society students and children from the Aldersgate United Methodist Church all take a turn at cleaning up garden beds, composting, planting, mulching, harvesting and performing the 101 chores a garden demands.
“We work these kids hard,” says Terri Barrett, a member of the garden’s board and director of missions at Aldersgate, “but they sign up and come back again and again.”
What seems to draw the Carrollton children is the same thing that draws their elders—a strong sense of service to others. Every week—and pretty much year-round because of the moderate Texas climate—both kids and adults can be found bent over an acre of raised beds behind Aldersgate. Fifty percent of everything grown in the garden is given to local food shelves or needy seniors. Since the garden was founded five years ago, its volunteers have contributed 6,000 pounds of fresh produce to feed the hungry.
“A few years ago a pastor here at the church realized that the back acreage of the church’s property was just sitting there not doing a thing,” Terri explains. “So he suggested it be used for people who don’t have enough to eat. People at the church thought it was a great idea, so we figured out how we could use the land, drew up a plan, and joined with Keep Carrollton Beautiful, which is the garden club for the community.
“Keep Carrollton Beautiful became our umbrella organization so we could have nonprofit status,” Terri adds, then both the organization and the Aldersgate church donated funds. A number of individuals also contributed to the garden, and local businesses were generous. It was a true community effort.
“Finally, in 2010, about 100 people—gardeners, architects and people like me who didn’t have a clue about building a garden—we all got together and built the first beds.
“Now, the garden is where I find serenity and peace,” says Terri as she looks out over beds overflowing with lush, green vegetables. “It offers us the sense of community that we’ve lost in the electronic age. People meet and talk, we make friends with people of all ages and ethnicities we otherwise wouldn’t know, and we feed those who are hungry.”
She smiles. “It’s such a healing place.”
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6 Ways to Connect with Your Community on Halloween
Opinions on Halloween are mixed. Two thumbs up for adorable kids in costumes and everything pumpkin. Two thumbs down for tricks in your neighborhood that involve eggs and toilet paper. Piles of candy treats make kids happy and dentists cringe. Teenagers trick or treating sans costumes? Not so cool. Also not cool? Being the only house that gives out carrot sticks or toothbrushes.
What if our expectations for Halloween are too low? This year, instead of just focusing on candy, take the lead in your neighborhood with these tips for using the holiday as an opportunity to increase the sense of community and spread some happiness and joy.
1. Decorate.
Festively decorated homes are warm and welcoming. Decorate your front porch with pumpkins, scarecrows, bats, skeleton bones, spider webs, or witches. Let’s face it, decorations like ghosts hovering from tree limbs and spiders crawling all over trees make Halloween fun.
2. Have a Halloween Open House.
Google your favorite adult spooky cocktail or find one on Pinterest and make enough to share with friends and neighbors! Go all out and turn it into a witches brew complete with dry ice. For the little ones, make some ghostly hot chocolate and add white marshmallow ghost Peeps. Have some scary snacks out too. (Tip: Google “spooky recipe ideas” to find tons of ideas both gross and clever.) You don’t have to send out a formal invite or throw a full-blown party, just open your house to parents and kids as they stop by to trick or treat. Offering a welcoming home can foster conversation and new friendships.
3. Host a crafting event.
If you’re a parent, find a fun craft on Pinterest or elsewhere and host an event for neighborhood kids at your local community center, neighborhood clubhouse or your home. Buy small pumpkins and set up a table to paint them. Make sure you have an ample supply of googly eyes, glitter glue, child scissors, black and orange construction paper or felt pieces, stickers, crafty jewels and markers. Need other ideas? Consider making cornhusk dolls, pipe-cleaner spiders, or trick-or-treat buckets. If you love to bake, make it a Halloween cookie-decorating party.
4. Be a kid again yourself.
On Halloween, give yourself permission to play and be the house on the street that creates a lasting memory for kids. Hand out plastic spiders, fake snakes, or glow sticks. Have some full-size candy bars and give those out to the kids in the most creative costumes. Consider dressing in a costume yourself when you answer the door to trick or treaters. Play spooky music in the background. Share your happy holiday spirit.
5. Use Nextdoor.com to connect.
Nextdoor.com is an app that connects neighborhoods in a private group. You can use its Treat Map to let neighbors know the best route for efficient trick or treating (mark your house available for trick or treating) and there’s even a haunted house option for the neighbors who go all out.
6. Volunteer the day after.
Gather up some neighbors to walk the neighborhood the next day and collect trash. You are likely to find candy wrappers and other Halloween-related remnants. Beautify your neighborhood while getting some exercise and socializing.
Make Halloween something to talk about with your neighbors this year and create a sense of connection with the people who live closest to you.
Sandra Bilbray is a contributing editor for Live Happy, and the CEO and owner of themediaconcierge.net.
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Miranda Lambert Talks Life, Community, and Staying True to Her Roots in New Issue of Live Happy
Dallas, Texas — July 1, 2014— Country superstar Miranda Lambert graces the cover of the July/August issue of Live Happy magazine, a first-of-its-kind publication that combines the science of happiness with personal stories and exclusive interviews. In the issue, on newsstands July 1, the songstress talks about staying true to her roots in Lindale, Texas, as well as championing the causes closest to her heart, including no-kill rescue shelters for dogs and raising awareness for abused women.
And, as Lambert has found in both love and work, we’re better together, an idea the issue uses to prove long-term happiness isn’t a solo act, but rather the result of one’s community.
“While happiness starts within us, it quickly becomes about interacting with others,” says Live Happy Editor in Chief Karol DeWulf Nickell. “We need to know ourselves first, but once we have that understanding, we are happier with others in our lives. That's community at its core.”
Among the benefits of interacting with our communities and loved ones is a longer life span, say two of the 12 experts featured in the magazine’s landmark discussion of the connection between happiness and longevity. Through new research, as well as an interview with eight-time Emmy winner Cloris Leachman, “The Golden Age of Happiness” shows that with a few simple steps, our golden years can truly be golden.
Another featured article in the issue is “Waves that Save.” Through “surf therapy,” amateur and avid surfers, including legendary pro surfer Laird Hamilton, are finding that taking to the waves and experiencing the healing power of the ocean is just what the doctor ordered. And adding to the discussion of community is “The Happiness of Being Special,” giving readers an insider’s glimpse into the lives of four families with special needs children. They share how supporting one another and finding joy in the smallest moments has led to an immeasurable joy—one that many of us on the outside may not expect.
In addition to profiles of actress and philanthropist Holly Robinson Peete and actress and author Mariel Hemingway, the July/August issue’s columns continue to inspire with their advice for everyday life:
PERSONAL TIME: Positive psychologists Shawn Achor and Michele Gielan share their tips for leading a longer, healthier life and why you should “Put Your Smile On.”
HOME: In “Word Power,” international best-selling author and happiness expert Gretchen Rubin discusses how slight changes in word choice can have big effects in how others perceive you—and how you perceive yourself.
WORK: Executive coaches Margaret H. Greenberg and Senia Maymin introduce readers to “The Achoo! Effect,” when positive and negative emotions impact our social situations, at home and at work.
SELF: Stacy Kaiser, a psychotherapist and relationship expert, discusses how to take responsibility for the emotional baggage we each bear—whether visible or not—in “Carry-on or Checked?”
“Community is a perfect theme for this issue of Live Happy because summertime is when we celebrate that common bond, whether it’s at Fourth of July celebrations, family reunions with our aging loved ones, or even on a surfboard in the middle of the ocean,” Nickell says. “Happiness isn’t something that can be achieved alone.”
The issue also announces the first Live Happy Experience & Expo, taking place in Dallas Nov. 7 – 8, 2014. Attendees will have the opportunity to interact with experts in the happiness movement, learn about the four pillars of happiness and find out how they can achieve greater wellbeing and discover true success. For more information, go to livehappy.com.
# # #
About Live Happy LLC
Live Happy LLC is dedicated to promoting and sharing authentic happiness through education, integrity, gratitude, and community awareness. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, its mission is to impact the world by bringing the happiness movement to a personal level and inspiring people to engage in living positive, healthy, meaningful lives. For more information, please visit livehappy.com.
Media Inquiries:
Rachel Albert
Krupp Kommunications
ralbert@kruppnyc.com
(212) 886-6704
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7 Apps to Get You More Involved in Your Community and the World
The summer after my first year in business school, I accepted an internship at the United Way in Gulfport, Mississippi. The year was 2005 and my assignment was to update the organization’s infrastructure by developing new systems for online giving, emergency protocols and sustainability planning. I had no idea how soon my efforts would be put to the test. I wish I could say my work that summer was part of a crucial response initiative, but when Hurricane Katrina hit on Aug. 29, I learned that my carefully written protocol, along with the desk I wrote it on, were literally floating somewhere in the ocean.
The emergency we never planned for
Following my limited memory of my protocol, I called the other staff, only to learn that everyone was in crisis and our executive director was missing (we were able to connect with her a few days later, and she was fine). I remember feeling so helpless—our organization was supposed to be a hub for disaster response in the area, but our operation was devastated. Yet in the interim, digital humanitarian groups from around the globe stepped up, helping to upgrade our infrastructure for communication and filling in where we simply could not.
Crisis management in the digital era
Since Hurricane Katrina, technology for disaster response has improved by leaps and bounds. In times of crisis, humanitarians with digital tools can help sift through the high volume of user-generated content (texts, photos, aerial imagery, videos and more) so that aid workers can focus on doing what they do best: providing aid.
For example, when an earthquake struck Nepal in 2015, more than 7,500 digital volunteers contributed to improving Wikipedia’s OpenStreetMap so that aid workers could navigate the area efficiently and even use satellite imagery to determine the regions of Nepal affected. Similarly, Humanity Road and Standby Task Force curated social information and coordinated volunteers, while other groups like Translators Without Borders bridged language gaps.
The cliché that works: Think globally, act locally
You don’t have to traverse the globe to get involved in making your own community a better place. Some of the highest-impact work can take place right within your neighborhood. When I moved into my new neighborhood in Dallas, I learned that a huge percentage of residents use the app NextDoor as a sort of virtual community kiosk. I was amazed to see how this simple, free online bulletin board added to our neighborhood, deepening connections and enabling a whole different level of social support.
Every day, users post about dogs on the loose, teenagers driving recklessly, families in need and more. On one memorable day, a man collapsed on a sidewalk and another neighbor found him. He had no identification on him, so the neighbor called 911 and then posted a description of him to alert his family. Within five minutes, his family was found and he was safely on his way to the hospital.
If you’re interested in becoming a digital volunteer, either at home or further afield, check out these great apps and dive in!
NextDoor.com: Build community in your neighborhood.
SeeClickFix: Report issues like potholes and street signs that need to get fixed in your city.
PublicStuff: Drive positive change in your community through online campaigns.
Care2.com: Start petitions and gain support for causes.
BeMyEyes: Help a blind individual see through video chat.
CitizInvestor.com: Invest in public projects that you care about through crowdfunding and civic engagement.
Translators Without Borders: Offer to translate oral and written documents for people in need.
Listen to our podcast: The Future of Happiness With Amy Blankson
Read more from Amy: Let Technology Lift Your Life
Amy Blankson, aka the ‘Happy Tech Girl,’ is on a quest to help individuals balance productivity and well-being in the digital era. Amy, with her brother Shawn Achor, co-founded GoodThink, which brings the principles of positive psychology to lifeand works with organizations such as Google, NASA and the U.S. Army. Her new book is called The Future of Happiness: 5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity and Well-being in the Digital Era.
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Start a Ripple of Kindness in Your Community
This past week, I was checking out at the grocery store with my three daughters. I was in “go mode,” as in let’s-check-out-as-fast-as-possible-and-go because my 4-year-old was starting to lose it. While I was juggling the cart, shopping bags and my wallet, my 7-year-old tugged my sleeve and pointed to a basket full of golden Cadbury Eggs (strategically placed at child height).
“Look mommy, the sign says they are free!” A quick glance assured me that they were most definitely not free. “No, sweetie,” I replied hastily, “The sign says buy one, get one free.” She paused and then reasoned, “So, that means you can get two!” I am well practiced at turning down my kids’ entreaties for candy, so I off-handedly quipped that “maybe the Easter bunny would bring them a Cadbury Egg.” I should have known that that would only lead to more questions about how much longer it was until Easter…and then of course, more tears.
Candy from a stranger
As we zoomed out of the grocery store, I heard a woman’s voice calling from behind me. “Ma’am!” I turned around and saw the woman and her daughter who had been standing behind us in line rushing toward us. “For your girls,” the mother said breathlessly, extending out to me a giant chocolate bar. And just as quickly as they appeared, they were gone. Shocked, I paused for a moment in the parking lot, contemplating what had just happened. Someone had gone out of her way to bring my children an unexpected sliver of happiness!
Humbled and overwhelmed, I got into my car and shared the story with my kids, whose faces of course broke into huge smiles when they saw the chocolate bar. Immediately, they began asking if we could buy chocolate bars for other people, too. This woman’s random act of kindness probably cost one dollar and took less than one minute to complete, but her actions left a deep impression on my family.
Kindness begets more kindness
I often talk about the science behind conscious acts of kindness through my work at GoodThink (a positive psychology consulting firm), but I found it was a powerful experience to be on the receiving end of kindness and in the position to carry that ripple effect forward. Over the past year, I spent quite a bit of time reading source material for my upcoming book,The Future of Happiness, and I became fascinated with the mechanism behind what makes an individual take action on an idea.
It turns out that in almost every case, a person or a specific event functions as a catalyst for decision making, which means that if we see our actions as catalytic events for the positive, we can harness incredible energy and power to impact the world for the better.
In fact, simply observing an act of kindness can set a cascade of generosity into motion and make others significantly more willing to try acts of kindness themselves. In a famous experiment from 1966, researchers studied whether or not other drivers would stop to lend a hand to a “lady in distress” with a flat tire. Half of the drivers passing by had seen a staged setting with a young male helping a girl just beforehand, while the other half of the drivers had not. The study found that the presence of a positive model significantly increased the altruistic behaviors of other drivers, creating a catalytic event that rippled positivity beyond the bounds of the experiment and unconsciously shaped behavior in a powerful way.
A daisy chain of giving
When a customer at the drive-through window of a Tim Hortons coffee shop decided to pick up the tab for the stranger in the car behind her, the customer, surprised and delighted, decided to pay for the following customer as well, resulting in a 226-customer streak of generosity over the next three hours.
This phenomenon was repeated in 2014 when a Starbucks customer’s act of kindness resulted in a 378-customer streak over 11 hours. In each of these cases, a single act of altruism created a powerful ripple effect that extended far beyond the people in line—these stories became an internet sensation and a catalyst for other random acts of kindness in communities across the globe.
What kind of ripple effect can you start in your community?
Next month, you can help Live Happy celebrate the fourth annual International Day of Happiness by participating in #HappyActs, and doing various kindnesses for friends and strangers during the month of March. Go to HappyActs.org to sign up for daily texts, podcasts, videos and articles to prompt your altruism. Maybe you can organize a neighborhood cleanup effort, deliver flowers to a neighbor, or just hold the door for a stranger.
The beauty of #HappyActs is that you do not have to have a lot of time or money or status or even connections—you just have to have a willingness to make someone’s day just a bit brighter and the follow-through to accomplish it. If you need more stories or ideas to help get your creative juices flowing, check out the Nobly app (available for iPhone and Android). Or if you are looking for a daily inspiration, check out Deedtags, an app that challenges users to complete simple daily missions. Tweet your #HappyActs @LiveHappy and they will appear on our tagboard!
Amy Blankson, aka the ‘Happy Tech Girl,’ is on a quest to find strategies to help individuals balance productivity and well-being in the digital era. Amy, with her brother Shawn Achor, co-founded GoodThink, which brings the principles of positive psychology to lifeand works with organizations such as Google, NASA and the US Army. Her upcoming book is called The Future of Happiness: 5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity and Well-being in the Digital Era (April 2017).
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Community Heroes Awarded $1.1 Million for Kindness, Compassion
When he was a child, Daniel Lubetzky’s father told him about the Holocaust. In his father’s stories it wasn’t the death, hatred and inhumanity he had experienced at Dachau concentration camp that stood out. It was the kindness, like when a Nazi guard sneaked him a potato.
“My father never forgot that soldier, he always said that potato—that fleeting moment of kindness—helped him stay alive,” Daniel says.
That is why, when Daniel established KIND Snacks in 2004, he set company goals of promoting kindness—and of course making a really good nut-and-fruit granola bar.
A little over a decade later, Daniel established the nonprofit KIND Foundation to further his mission. In December 2016, the foundation announced the annual winners: KIND People who “show us how to live a life rooted in purpose, forge an inclusive society and lead our communities with determination and humanity,” according to their website, kindsnacks.com.
Honoring KIND people
Doniece Sandoval, featured in Live Happy’s December 2015 issue for her work with the homeless, was awarded $500,000. Six other winners received $100,000 each. Although their work ranges from water access to prison rehabilitation, they all share one quality—the ability to put kindness into action.
These are not the people who are going to see something and just stand by,” said KIND Foundation Director Dana Rosenberg. “All of them saw something and did something."
In Doniece’s case, that meant converting old buses to mobile shower units and driving them to locations in San Francisco where the homeless could use them. Although her creation, Lava Mae, is innovative, Doniece said the most incredible acts of kindness she has seen are simple.
“We think kindness has to be big,” Doniece says. “But sometimes it’s just the little things.” Little things like when a homeless man ran up to a shower unit announcing he had a job interview and everyone in line let him go first saying, “Go ahead man,” “Get it done,” and “Go get that job.”
Many ways to give back
Fellow award winner Jodi Rae Ingstad of Valley City, North Dakota, is known for doing little things—lots of them. Her most recent mission is delivering meat to needy elderly residents. Another winner, Jo Dee Davis of Columbus, Ohio, created a holistic rehabilitative prison program.
In all, there were almost 5,000 entries—far more than the foundation had expected. Finalists were chosen by a group of judges that included Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and media mogul Arianna Huffington. Nominations had to come from someone other than the nominee; Jodi Rae, however, was recommended by her husband.
“When we shared the nomination with Jodi Rae (Ingstad), she was so taken aback by the stories of kindness that her husband shared about her she said, ‘I didn’t realize he was seeing and understanding all of this,’ ” Dana explains.
Promoting kindness
According to Doniece, hearing about kind acts “lifts you up and makes you realize there’s plenty of good in the world.”
Which is exactly what the foundation is about. By recognizing and promoting kindness, in this case by showcasing the winners’ work in videos and stories, they hope to inspire other acts of kindness. The response has been promising. Jodi Rae has been flooded with thank-you notes and offers of support. Jo Dee has also heard from people interested in her work.
Doniece—even before the award was announced—received 1,500 requests to bring similar programs to other communities. She plans to use the award money to complete a toolkit that outlines the steps to do that.
This year, KIND Foundation plans to work with Harvard University to develop tools to create kinder school environments and will continue awarding $10,000 to worthy causes each month.
“Kindness is a magical power,” Daniel says. “We call it a net-happiness aggregator. Both the person doing the kind act and the recipient are better off afterward.”
See videos of the winners and read more about their stories at https://www.kindsnacks.com/foundation/kindpeople/
Katya Cengel reports from around the world and teaches journalism at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, National Geographic and Foreign Policy.
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Community Shows Up for Dallas Police
On a recent early morning Friday drive to work, I couldn’t help but question why the streets of Dallas were so empty. I turned on the radio, only to find that the city of Dallas was rocked by a night of terror when a lone gunman killed five police officers. When I got to work I sat in stillness, gathering my thoughts, trying to figure out how best I could support the city’s officers in their time of sadness and despair.
Casey Johnson, my colleague at Live Happy, told me that on her drive to work, she passed the Dallas Police Department’s North Central Division and noticed an outpouring of support from the community. Together, we decided to grab Live Happy bracelets and sticky notes with positive sayings and head to the station. As we approached the parking lot, we saw individuals and families of all races and backgrounds coming together to support, honor and acknowledge the officers who were injured or killed the previous night, as well as the officers standing before them. Parents walked up with their children to give the officers hugs, handmade drawings and colorful signs.
These small, simple acts of love and kindness brought feelings of joy and gratitude to the officers, as well as the community as a whole. At that moment, I felt grateful to witness first-hand the power of what small acts of kindness can do for other people. Steve Ledbetter, a Dallas Police Department reserve officer with 30 years of experience says, “It’s overwhelming how good it [the support] makes us feel and how much we want to do for this community.”
He appreciates the heartfelt, face-to-face messages and gratitude from citizens who smile and say “thank you for your service” or pay for officers’ coffees or meals. He and his wife stopped by a Chili’s after a funeral for one of the five Dallas officers. Steve was in uniform, and when he was ready to pay, their waiter told them their bill was taken care of by the couple sitting behind them.
“I stood up and walked to their booth to thank them,” Steve said. “And as soon as I said ‘thank you,’ I felt a tear running down my cheek. I tried to compose myself and told them how grateful Iwas.” The couple responded that it was the least they could do for a member of the Dallas Police. “We created such a bond in our short conversation,” he said, that they plan to meet for lunch again soon.
Steve said the department has been overwhelmed with kind, generous acts such as people coming by to say “thank you” and to share food and gifts. A memorial of balloons, stuffed animals, flowers and signs enveloped a DPD squad car outside the downtown police headquarters.
“The kindness from everyone’s hearts is really pulling us through this tragic situation,” he says.
Alix Schwartz is a graduate student at the University of Southern California School of Social Work. She is an intern for Live Happy.
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