Happy #WorldKindnessDay

A woman in my neighborhood makes pretty bouquets from her garden flowers and gifts them to anyone lucky enough to be strolling past her house. She sets them outside in small vases with a note that invites people to help themselves.

She has done this every day her prolific garden bloomed.

The Green Lake Town Square Community Center hosts a Kindness Corner that offers both specific and whimsical ways to spread a little love. I poked my head in one day and left with an extensive fall kindness to-do list I’m currently working my way through.

A woman I know runs a community garden that provides fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers to the St. Joe’s Food Pantry. She has done this cheerfully all summer for many years, resulting in bushels of fresh beans, tomatoes, corn, lettuce and other nutrition rich food for people in need.

When I visited my daughter Katherine, she, Ed and Benny left me a welcome note I loved so much I packed it in my suitcase and took it back home with me.

Our granddaughter Margo learned how to tuck in a teddy bear last week in her toddler daycare. She took this assignment seriously. I think little people who learn to take such gentle care of teddy bears will share that compassion with the world.

In honor of World Kindness Day, I bring you these examples to show how kindness still thrives in a world that can sometimes seem cold.

It’s there in the woman who held a heavy door open against a blustery wind and waved everyone through, in the mentor who answered every late-night call from his struggling mentee, in the community volunteer who secured housing, jobs, a vehicle, clothes and a basketball for the refugee family she’s come to love.

You can also find it in simpler ways — a smile, a hug, a sweet note, a high-five, a generous tip, a wave into traffic, a little patience in a long line.

I hope your day is full of kindness today and that you find ways to share it too.

If you want to join me in the Green Lake Fall Kindness project, I’m sharing the list below.

Happy World Kindness Day!