Activate This: Spread the Love

Who doesn't love a surprise? A flower on your car, an unexpected card or a box of Grandma's cookies? Why don't we spread that kind of surprise love with a few random acts of kindness now and then?

This week, we are encouraging a new kind of activism- a love feast for our campus. Campuses all over the U.S. are starting to spread kindness to students and the community with random gifts and services. The University of Minnesota has even deemed the month of November as the "Month of Kindness" where they plan activities to get students involved in events that give back to the community and the campus. Another initiative by campuses is a new spring break that focuses on traveling across the country performing volunteer acts of kindness as they go.

Greatly inspired by this, we are plotting a small initiative of our own to ignite random acts of kindness on our campus. 20 lucky students and faculty, selected at random will receive tiny gifts in their mailboxes by this weekend, courtesy of Activate This. Attached to that gift will be a challenge encouraging the recipients to 'pay it forward' with similar small random acts of kindness to other members of the community.

The success of this initiative will depend on the campus's willingness to participate in spreading love. It's all random, it's all beautiful, and it's all up to us.

Here are some suggestions, both large and small, to get started:

- Hug someone

- Take tea and crumpets to a fellow classmate

- Compliment someone

- Introduce yourself to someone you don't know

- Bake cookies for a professor

- Buy a drink for the person behind you in Common Grounds

- Pick up a piece of trash

- Text some love to an old friend

- Do your roommate's dishes

- Thank your CA and MA for loving you anyway

- Sit by someone new in class

- Create a lunch table out of entirely new people

- Compliment cafeteria staff, security, and physical plant for their excellent work

It's simple! Just tell yourself, "Today I will commit one random act of kindness," and follow through.