Little bits of good

A few weeks ago, a second grade teacher at our elementary school who taught both my son and daughter, talked to me about an idea. She was volunteering for a non-profit in the area and in course of her work had come across the inspirational teaching from Bishop Desmond Tutu that little bits of good can have a profound impact in our communities.

She had an idea based on this, which was to give a kid a wristband called a “Good Band”. The kid could do any good deed, however simple and small and the band would serve as a reminder of this. When the kid performed the good deed, he/she could pass on the band to someone else with the same instructions — “Wear the band, do a good deed, pass it on”. She wanted to know if it would be possible to build a simple web site that would allow for the kid (or the parent) to easily share or log the good deed so that you’d be part of a growing community of good deeds.

I’m proud to present Goodbands — a simple, easy to use web site, built in some spare time over the past few weeks that realizes this idea. Nothing fancy, simple visuals, no money/advertising/registration involved, just the basic application of some technology to help spread the idea. I realize again that what comes easily to the software engineers among us is sometime completely alien to a non-technical person. Things like spam prevention or profanity filters, for example.

Many thanks to Mary Beth Miller for helping me work with her to realize the concept, and best wishes to spreading little bits of good all around.