When Natalie Peace was a child, there was a poster on the wall next to the doorway of her house.
It’s message was simple, she said — “When you step out into the world, who do you want to be?”
The poster had about 100 suggested acts of kindness but, in her family, there were no lectures to adhere to them.
Instead, Peace said, her parents taught by doing it themselves.
This is a different time, however, Peace said.
Rather than hanging posters to spread the message, she and partner Carrie Neal have turned to the place “where kids’ eyes already are” with their Club Kindness app.
This isn’t, however, another online game that will capture kids’ attention for hours on end.
“This is about engaging them in the world,” Peace said.
“It’s not a babysitter. Parents have to really be engaged. It’s not even like Sesame Street.
“It’s about parents spending time with their kids.”
The premise is simple.
Club Kindness provides 22 daily challenges for kids to take on as their mission, each representing values like courage, helpfulness, friendliness, leadership, gratitude, thoughtfulness and generosity.
Parent and child read through the challenge and, once they choose a challenge, the application freezes.
“And you go out and do the mission,” Peace said.
With each completion, children are asked to answer four questions about their act of kindness, what happened when they did it and how they felt about it.
Those answers appear on the
club’s website —
clubkindess.com.
A variety of animal characters, each representing a quality, guide kids through the challenges and, once the 22 are done, children get an email with a personalized certificate signed by club president Rusty the Dog.
“It’s about finding ways to bring joy and play to reaching out to others,” said Peace, who introduced the 22 Days of Kindness challenge in her Booster Juice franchises, paying staff to do a minimum of four hours a month to undertake acts of kindness in the community.
Challenges are age-appropriate and can be something as simple as “think about one of your friends and write them a note” or “invite someone to play who you don’t usually play with,” Peace said.
“They’re little moments, like opening the door for others.”
The app, designed for children six to 12 years of age, works on both Apple and Android platforms and is sold online for $3.99.
