It seems that this is the time of year when people think about donating to charity, giving to non-profit groups or other acts of giving. Although it should be something that is practiced year-round, it is good to know that at least part of the year some thought of giving to those less fortunate comes to mind.

A random act of kindness can often began a cycle of giving. There’s a good commercial right now that shows how that can happen…although I can’t for the life of me remember what the commercial is for!  It shows little things that people do to strangers and those strangers in turn do a good deed for someone else.

A movie starring Helen Hunt, Haley Joel Osmont and Kevin Spacey, "Pay it Forward" was an exceptional example of just how far the power of giving can go.

Oprah has entire shows dedicated to the subject and recently gave audience members $1,000 with instructions that they were to give that money away to strangers.

Whether you do something simple, like pay the toll for the car in line behind you at the toll-booth…or maybe pay for lunch for the driver behind you at a drive-through restaurant….these little things can spark an ongoing cycle of giving.

Here is a great t-shirt reminding us to always Pay it Forward…(this design is available from CafePress on mugs, stickers, hats and other products in addition to t-shirts and the shop owner will use sales proceeds for random acts of kindness)

So, what can you do to start the cycle and Pay It Forward?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 11th, 2006 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Give a little, Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.