RAK up the good deeds/Pink Day

February: the month of love for all

Valentine’s Day inspires couples to reignite their love for each other, but before the roses die and the chocolate melts why not spread the love to wider circles? What better month than February to share love within our communities? February 25 to March 3 has been declared Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) week and Wednesday, February 28 is Pink Day.

RAK week is a good time to focus on bringing happiness to neighbours, colleagues, and strangers, or to stand up to bullying. For Sherry Bower-Gagne, a town councillor in Elk Point and family school liaison worker at F. G. Miller Jr/Sr High School (FGM), caring for each other should be part of everyday life. But she understands that people need reminders and support. She runs PUP (Practitioners of Underground Philanthropy), and its Kindness Committee is working on in-school theme days for RAK week to encourage cooperation among students.

Beyond the school, the entire community is encouraged “to do random acts of kindness and to take pictures and send them to us to put up on our website: www.fgmiller.ca .”

Some ways to celebrate RAK week, says the PUP post on the school website, “can be as little as letting someone go ahead of you in the grocery line, opening or holding a door open for someone, or even giving someone a simple ‘Hello!’ and smile!  It’s all about being a better you and cashing in on the kindness phenomenon!”

In conjunction with RAK week, Pink Shirt Day is nationally recognized as an occasion to show unity against bullying. Wearing a pink shirt on February 28 signifies opposition to bullying. The Kindness Committee has sent letters to businesses in Elk Point, “encouraging everyone to get creative and turn the town pink! …Show that Elk Point ‘Stands Together’ and we believe in kindness!”

Not just a time to help others, RAK week has a safety side to it as well.  Explains Bower-Gagne, “We are focusing on internet safety, social media safety, cyberbullying, how to keep yourself safe on the internet, and remembering that what goes out on the internet is there forever.” All efforts are working towards building a happier, safer community.