5 Creative Acts of Kindness You Can Do (And How)
Here’s something we all know: money isn’t everything, it doesn’t solve every problem, and it can’t buy happiness.
Money can be a way to care, and it’s a very important one. Financial support can go a long way in increasing sustainability for people in need. Since we launched Samaritan, we’ve seen thousands of financial gifts given. And these financial gifts have allowed 100s of Samaritan Members to increase their quality of life.
That form of care is great, and much needed. But what’s rarer is care that goes beyond infrastructure we can build; creative care.
These are five creative acts of kindness that we’ve seen from volunteers that you might be able to perform. Further, we’ll discuss how you can spot opportunities for this sort of kindness. Consider this both a guide and a challenge — a challenge to go above and beyond with your compassion, and find unique ways to meet unique needs.
5 Creative Acts of Kindness
Dropping Off a Needed Item
There are a few common themes in the needs of Samaritan Members. One of them is the need for a particular item. This could be almost anything, but most often it’s a form of transportation: a bike or a bus pass.
While many of these needs have been funded by a team, we’ve also seen some samaritans take the initiative. Whether it’s a quick stop or something they’ve had in the garage, some samaritans have found the needed item and dropped it off to a Samaritan Member.
This can be set up easily with a case manager through messages, and be a blessing to a Samaritan Member.
Inviting a Samaritan Member to a Gathering
While this was less advisable in a pre-vaccine world, the slow re-opening of the world is causing a resurgence in brunches, coffee meetups, and dinner parties.
What are you doing tonight? And who’s coming?
Consider adding a Samaritan Member to your invite list. We’ve seen samaritans make invites to all sort of meetups. One samaritan even invited an unhoused person to stay in a tent in the samaritans’ yard (and eventually in their basement).
A quick coffee can have a deeply meaningful impact for Samaritan Members. If you’ve ever felt isolated, you know how good it can feel to have someone reach out.
Making a Needed Connection
Another thing to consider is who in your network might be able to provide help. We do this for ourselves all the time. Car making a weird noise? You call someone who knows about cars. Allergies getting you down? You call someone who knows about medicine.
Samaritan Members often have needs that a little bit of expertise could help with. You and your friends have knowledge and social resources that are useful to your life. Sharing those social resources with a person in need can be life-changing.
Booking a Gig or Job Interview
Similar to a connection, there are often work opportunities in our networks that we don’t fit. In fact, we might not even notice them. Facebook posts pop up all the time looking for help moving, looking for help with inventory on short notice, and so on. When you have all the work you need, these things slip by.
Where there’s work, there’s someone in need of it. That may not be you, but it might be a Samaritan Member. Whether it’s a one day gig helping someone around their house or a job that they have the skills for, you might be able to put a foot in the door for a person looking for work. You know of opportunities that Samaritan Members and their case managers would never see.
Getting on the Phone
Messages are an easy way to have an impact on a person in need. Simply stating that you care can be a huge relief for someone who doesn’t hear that enough. Samaritan Members are always grateful to know you’re watching.
Consider taking that a step further. Many Samaritan Members have a phone you can call, and those that don’t have case managers who would love to set a phone call up. Taking just a bit of time out of your day to call a Samaritan Member you support is a great way to create more meaningful connection, and deepen the impact that your efforts have.
4 Steps to Meeting Needs Creatively
Creative acts of kindness are easy to do, but not always easy to think of. (That’s the trick with anything creative, isn’t it?) Finding opportunity for these acts of kindness is a simple process, though. These are the 4 required steps —half of them can be done passively.
Step 1: Consider the need.
When viewing a Samaritan Members profile, you see a list of their needs. Curated by the Samaritan Member and their case manager, these are the next steps that they need to take in their journey.
You can help in an obvious way by donating money towards the goal, or adding a stake to it’s completion.
But it’s good to take a second to really think about the need. Will money alone meet it? For example, a common need is groceries. Money can help you buy groceries, but it can’t go get them.
To solve a problem creatively, you have to really understand the problem. So as you’re reading a Samaritan Members profile, consider the actions that they’ll need to take to complete a goal.
Step 2: Consider your world.
With the needs of a Samaritan Member in mind, look at your world through a lens of support. Your world is everything you can interact with — your job, your place of worship, your friends and family, your corner store.
You can look at this as a mindfulness exercise, too. Slow down and consider the functions that the people, places, and things in your world serve. You might get in your car to go to work every morning, but it’s functional much beyond that.
When you’re looking to provide help creatively, your world becomes a toolbox. Ask yourself what or who, in your world, could help a Samaritan Member with their needs.
Step 3: Send a message
When you’ve found a connection between your world and the world of a Samaritan Member, send them a message!
They’ll see it, and so will their case manager. Just like any other messaging platform, you’ll be able to send messages back and forth and set up the help you’re looking to provide.
Step 4: Do it!
So you’ve found the connection and made it. Now you know exactly what to do — do it!
If you haven’t done a creative act of kindness yet, you can only imagine the impact it can have on you and on the person you’re doing the kindness for. You can imagine that they’re more difficult to do than they seem.
It really is as easy as finding an opportunity and capitalizing on it. And when you do it, the future gets a little bit kinder.
This is your challenge to go out and perform a creative act of kindness. When you do, I’d love to hear about it — comment or email me at eric@samaritan.city and tell us what you did!
And if you can’t find an opportunity, consider sending a message to a Samaritan Member anyway. A human-to-human conversation is always nice to have.
