It’s time to start thinking about what you are going to do. Random Acts of Kindness Week February 13 through 19 is only a week and a half away.  During that week, people pledge to do one act of kindness each day. 

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has the place to go for ideas about what to do that week (and any week, for that matter). Just choose where you want to do the acts of kindness, for instance, at home, in school, or on the web or phone.  A list of ideas will appear for whichever place you choose.

A typical week could be something like this:

Day 1: Donate your gently used jeans to Teens for Jeans. Collect your jeans (and those of your friends, too!) and drop them off at any Aéropostale or P.S. from Aéropostale store.

Day 2: Send a card to a sick child through Hugs and Hope for Sick Children.

Day 3: Cut your hair for kids who need wigs. Donate at Wigs For Kids.  Hair must be at least 12 inches and not chemically processed (that means no color or perms in it).

Day 4: If you live in an apartment complex, start a lending library in your clubhouse or laundry room. Or, if you don’t, release a book into the wild at Book Crossing and see where it ends up.

Day 5: Give donations or postage money to Give2TheTroops.  They are collecting for Easter/Passover now. Find out about more opportunities to support our troops at Military.com.

Day 6: Ever notice those little plastic buckets placed at the checkout counter of Dollar General or other stores to gather change for a charity?  Today, make an effort to put your change in one, or maybe even a dollar or two.

Day 7: Go through your closet and see if you have any shoes you can donate to Soles4Souls. Find a  dropoff location near you at their website.

I specifically chose items that your kids can do easily in one week.  Many of them are focused on other children, too, so they feel they are helping someone like them. In these ways, you can get them started on thinking how they can help others throughout their lifetime.

One of the programs featured in the Kindness Links by the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation  is One Million Acts of Kindness, a website that encourages parents to raise their children to help others so that every person can do one million acts of kindness in his lifetime. The site provides certificates that parents can give to their children vowing to support them and children can make a vow to try to do one million acts of kindness. 

The site was started by a man who has been travelling the United States on his bicycle to raise awareness for different causes such as wounded warriors and safety forces in 2012 and survivors of childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence in 2011.