City of Kindness
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The City of Solana Beach has adopted a resolution to become a “City of Kindness,” committing to foster a culture of kindness among City government, schools, businesses, residents, and visitors.
The objective of the City of Kindness is to make the world a better place by increasing the amount of kindness in it. Mayors across the country have come together to challenge the nation to adopt a culture of kindness in our cities, businesses and schools through acts of kindness. Cities across the United States have embraced kindness as its core value and have challenged their residents, businesses, schools and visitors to embrace and model kindness in their interactions with others.
City of Kindness Spotlight
As an official City of Kindness, the City is committed to fostering a culture of kindness, inclusion, tolerance, and engagement among our residents, visitors, schools, businesses, and city organizations. Starting this week, the City will feature a monthly City of Kindness Spotlight to recognize acts of kindness within our community. This spotlight will feature stories of kindness and community engagement from local residents, organizations, public servants, first responders, teachers, students and more!
Do you know someone that deserves a spotlight for their Kindness in Solana Beach? Community members are welcome and encouraged to submit nominations for the City of Kindness Spotlight. To submit a nomination, please email Kayla Moshki at kmoshki@cosb.org.
August Spotlight: SeaWeeders Garden Club
Our inaugural City of Kindness Spotlight features the SeaWeeders – an organization whose public garden projects are prominent around town. The SeaWeeders is a club for gardening enthusiasts whose goal is to promote sustainable beautification around our city. They have done so much to sustain kindness in our city, from participating in local city events, to spreading awareness of and installing plants to support monarch butterflies, to organizing teams of gardeners to add to the beauty of our community. The organization has been around for more than 20 years and is credited with many of the loveliest spots in Solana Beach, including helping with the gardens at the Solana Beach Eastern Gateway, Fire Station, Post Office, Coastal Rail Trail, San Elijo Lagoon, and the El Viento Pocket Park. Read more.
Join the Movement. Make Your Kindness Count!
Mayors across the country have come together to challenge the nation to adopt a culture of kindness in our cities, businesses and schools through acts of kindness. City of Kindness has committed to tracking these acts across the nation with the official Kindness Counter. Submit a completed act of kindness and join the City of Solana Beach in this movement. An act of kindness is any act that requires you to put an another’s needs before your own. No matter the size or impact, each act of kindness is important!
Once you’ve completed an act, search the website for more resources and opportunities to get involved. Kindness is everywhere and it only takes one act to make a difference in your community. The more we spread kindness, the better our world will be.
Community Engagement
Gift of Kindness
Give the “Gift of Kindness” this Holiday! Solana Beach is home to an amazing, vibrant business community. As a city of kindness, the Holidays offer a unique opportunity to further demonstrate our culture. We encourage our businesses to lead us in the example of kindness. Amidst the hustle of this time of year, a simple act of kindness, can make a huge difference in one’s day,… one’s Holiday! You know that kindness is contagious and you could be responsible for spreading this CHEER! Find your way as an individual and a business to be kind.
- Pay for someone’s groceries behind you in line.
- Take flowers to the nurse’s station at your local hospital. The nurses will know who needs them most.
- Pay for the lunch of people behind you at a fast food restaurant or behind you in the drive thru.
- Take lunch, cookies, or cupcakes to your local fire and marine safety departments and/or police department.
- Donate stuffed animals to police and fire departments to use during emergencies to help calm frightened children.
- Leave extra time in the parking meter or fill an expired or about to expire parking meter.
- Put change in a row of vending machines.
- Buy extra groceries for the local food bank.
- Pick up the tab when dining out. Approach the waiter and pay when no one is watching.
- Leave a nice waiter or waitress a generous tip.
- Buy dessert for someone eating out alone.
- Pick up the tab for a random table at a restaurant.
- Tape cash or a gift card on a random gas pump.
- Pay the toll for the person behind you.
- Put sticky notes with positive messages in public places.
- Sing Christmas Carols, play board games, or just visit with senior citizens at a nursing home.
- Tape a plastic bag of quarters to a washer or dryer at the laundromat.
- Purchase some extra dog or cat food and drop it off at an animal shelter.
- Help someone load their groceries.
- Offer to return someone’s shopping cart to the store.
- Let someone go ahead of you in the checkout line.
- Leave a favorite book in a public place with a note that it’s free for the taking.
- Hide a few dollar bills around the Dollar Store.
- Hand out gloves and mittens to the homeless, or leave them on park benches.
- Bring coffee to construction workers, police on detail, lifeguards or anyone working outside.
- Pay for the coffee, the toll, or the bus fare for the person behind you.
- Be understanding of traveling parents with the grumpy or noisy kids.
- Sing an employee’s praises to a manager or on a comment card — a little recognition goes a long way.
- Volunteer an afternoon at a soup kitchen.
- Paid past due library fees for 5 people and while there, put dollar bills in some of your favorite books.
- Drop off a toy or game at a hospital or a homeless shelter.
- Leave a $5 taped to the entrance of a car wash or tape a gift certificate for a free car wash to a stranger’s car.
- Donate coloring books and boxes of new crayons to the pediatric wing of a hospital.
- Leave a big bottle of laundry detergent at a laundromat.
- Give a hot drink to the person ringing the Salvation Army bell.
- Leave candy canes on the windshields of random cars.
- Invite someone you suspect will be alone to spend your holiday celebrations with you.
World Kindness Day
City of Solana Beach is proud celebrate "World Kindness Day" on November 13th. World Kindness Day is an international holiday that was formed in 1998, to promote kindness throughout the world and is observed annually on November 13th as part of the World Kindness Movement. This day observed in many countries including the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and the U.A.E. World Kindness Day presents us with the opportunity to reflect upon one of the most important and unifying human principles. On a day devoted to the positive potential of both large and small acts of kindness, we encourage you to promote and diffuse this crucial quality that brings people of every kind together.
The purpose of World Kindness Day as outlined by the World Kindness Movement is “to highlight good deeds in the community focusing on the positive power and the common thread of kindness which binds us.” Since its creation more than two decades ago, the day has achieved global notice; events associated with the day have attracted participants from every inhabited continent. These have included activities such as concerts, dance mobs, and the distribution of “kindness cards.”
For more information and inspiration on World Kindness Day spend some time on Random Acts of Kindness, ActionforHappiness and follow the hashtag #WorldKindnessDay on social media.
Cups of Kindness!
City of Solana Beach is excited to announce a special event to kick off our new City of Kindness initiative. Resident Jonathon Collopy is leading this initiative in the community and, along with the City, would like to invite the community out to celebrate “Cups of Kindness,” a partnership between the City of Solana Beach Kindness Project and Starbucks.
City officials and Starbucks are kicking off a new menu item, “Cups of Kindness,” in which anyone can buy an advance cup of coffee for a fellow patron, neighbor, friend, or guest. Simple acts of kindness are contagious, and the collective power of kindness has the ability to change culture.
Celebrate, join, and be a part of our growing City of Kindness.
City Staff, members of the community, and local Starbucks Staff
Get Inspired
For more information, inspiration or want to implement kindness in your city, please visit cityofkindness.org.
Did you know that kindness is teachable?
“It’s kind of like weight training, we found that people can actually build up their compassion ‘muscle’ and respond to others’ suffering with care and a desire to help.” Dr. Ritchie Davidson, University of Wisconsin
Or that kindness is contagious?
The positive effects of kindness are experienced in the brain of everyone who witnessed the act, improving their mood and making them significantly more likely to “pay it forward.” This means one good deed in a crowded area can create a domino effect and improve the day of dozens of people! Jamil Zaki, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford University for Scientific American, July 26, 2016
Check out Random Acts of Kindness video that explains the science behind kindness.
