By now you should have a pretty good idea of what AMOK is — namely, our Annual Melee of Kindness — although you may still be asking yourself, “Okay but what should I DO?” For the answer to that, we turn to our AMOK Program Coordinator, Jean Hayes.
Jean knows a thing or two about kindness and how to squeeze small acts into everyday life. When Random Acts first launched the Kindness Heroes program, Jean went all-in, setting a goal for herself to do an act of kindness every single day for an entire year. Many acts were small, like leaving quarters at laundromats or diapers in public restrooms. Some were larger, like making and serving dinner to women at a local shelter and even coordinating a Class Act submission at her kids’ school. By the time the year was over, Jean had indeed completed each level of the Kindness Heroes program — the first person to do it!
When asked what motivated her to complete the Kindness Heroes program, Jean said that she wanted to apply the mission of conquering the world with random acts of kindness to her everyday life. She wanted to learn about the various ways Random Acts encourages people to put kindness into the world. And she wanted to share what she learned so that other people could make a similar impact.
“I’m a cancer survivor, but I can’t cure cancer,” Jean said. “I can’t raise enough money for someone else to cure cancer. But I can be as kind as I possibly can. I can make someone else’s day better.”
The best part is that she documented all of her kindness shenanigans on her blog. Looking through the stories she shared, you start to see just how easy it can be to change your mindset and put small, intentional, random acts of kindness into your daily life. Take a look — you might see something that gives you an idea of what you can do for AMOK, or for any day!
So are you ready to run AMOK? This year’s dates are April 27 & 28. If you have an act planned already, let us know! Hit us up on social media and be sure to use the #AMOKRA19 hashtag so we can see all your wonderful plans for spreading some kindness. And if you have any questions for Jean, you can find her on Twitter at @RandomActsAMOK or email her at amok@randomacts.org. Let’s do this!
