The Great Kindness Challenge 2025
The GREAT KINDNESS CHALLENGE kicks off Monday, January 27th and runs through Friday the 31st. Thousands of schools around the country, as well as over 100 other countries take part in this global event, impacting millions of students.
Kindness is a wonderful idea anytime for us all, and not just in our schools but everywhere, isn’t it?
The Great Kindness Challenge was founded in 2011 here in Carlsbad. The Kindness Challenge was started by Carlsbad resident Jill McManigal, co-founder (with Danielle Gram in 2006) and Executive Director of the non-profit, Kids for Peace. The Great Kindness program was piloted at 3 schools in Carlsbad in 2011, and the Great Kindness Challenge has expanded, not surprisingly, and pretty dramatically, since its creation.
Kids for Peace offers several programs in addition to the Great Kindness Challenge – Kids Club for Peace, a virtual after school program; a Racial Justice Program; and the Peace Pledge Program.
The Great Kindness Challenge website stats convey a powerful message about the impact thus far, with over 20 million students in over 115 countries and 41,000 schools taking part, resulting in more than 1 billion acts of kindness! Just imagine the impact!
What a powerful way to inspires and empower people to create a culture of kindness everywhere.
The Great Kindness Challenge is based on a checklist of different acts of kindness that kids can perform during the week, some easier than others...like smiling at 25 people. Hope Elementary here in the Calavera Hills area of Carlsbad (my neighborhood) was one of the first schools to take on this awesome challenge.
There is also a family edition of the Great Kindness Challenge if you are interested in family participation. We can all find ways to be kind to others all year long, and every day? Have you heard of anything special in your area to celebrate this Challenge?
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