I have been working with children to bring them awareness of their bullying behavior and how to change it. - Pledge #316 – Denver, Colorado

photo: David Woo

What is 500 Kindnesses?
500 Kindnesses is a charity bicycle ride of a different sort. Instead of raising money for a specific charity, we’re asking you, our “sponsors” to pledge acts of kindness to friends, relatives, and strangers and then let us share them (anonymously if you prefer) with others online. Between now and our trip to New York we hope to raise over 500 acts of kindness – one for approximately every three miles of our journey.

The ride itself will begin in July of 2012. On that day, Todd O’Reilly and his 13 year old son Daegan will leave Toronto, Ontario on a tandem bicycle and travel nearly 2,500 kilometres from Toronto (what some consider the rudest and coldest city in Canada) to New York City (What some consider the rudest and coldest city in the states) and back by way of Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, and Provincetown, MA.

Along the way we’ll be relying as much as possible on the kindness of strangers for lodging via Couchsurfing.org. At the same time, we’ll be collecting stories of acts of kindness given and received.

New: For every pledge made, $1 will be donated to the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation. More info here.

Thanks to William Murphy for the kindness image.

Even as the date for the Coordinated Kindness event passed, people continued to join in with five more participating in the past week. Some responses to the event:

Have Always & regularly send snail-mail/letters & cards to friends & loved ones–& will participate –in this by sending a B-day card to Mrs.Possert–want to send it close to her ‘day’!=)

I write letters and send cards all the time. I used to love to get REAL mail. It’s like a lost art. So, hopefully this will motivate more people to actually write to someone they love or even a perfect stranger. Remember R’ Troops : )

I LOVE sending things in the mail. No one expects a letter anymore. I like to write backwards letters that you have to hold up to a mirror to read… My niece is long overdue for one!

As a matter o’fact I have a collection of headlines and some pictures I stuck together and put in a big envelope, which then demanded its own decorations and which is headed to Dragon. Ok, something else for the 11th: right up my dirt road.

And if you still haven’t participated and want to send something, folks have recommended a couple places:
Postcrossing: Postcrossing is a project that allows anyone to receive postcards (real ones, not electronic) from random places in the world.

And of course there’s the Look for the Good project. From the website:

THE LOOK FOR THE GOOD PROJECT was created by Anne Kubitsky to help people center on an underlying good in life. By asking the question, “What are YOU grateful for?” she invited the community at large to share a “glimmer of gladness” on a postcard and mail it back to her. Since the project’s 2011 inception, she has received hundreds of heartfelt messages from all over the world… and continues to receive them on a daily basis.

But THE LOOK FOR THE GOOD PROJECT isn’t just about gratitude. It’s about opening up to a lifestyle that’s spiritually minded, socially aware, and environmentally sustainable. When we’re grateful, we have good values… which lead to good choices… which enable good actions. Peace, happiness, freedom, love… it all begins with gratitude. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we each opened our hearts to gratitude? Try it right now by asking yourself: What am I grateful for?

Thanks again to everyone who partcipated!

photo: Melanie Gow

The first 40 KM were really amazing once we got out of the worst of the suburban traffic and sprawl and found our way down to the shore of Lake Ontario where despite the heat there was a lovely breeze and lots of shade. There were some rolling hills but nothing that really challenged us. But all good things have to come to an end and that was true for the easy portion of the ride which started to peter out as we turned north and we hit our first more significant hills.

Now when I tell everyone that my 13 year old son and I are heading out on a long trip like that, everyone’s first question, whether directly or danced around is: “Do you think a 13 year old can do it?” After today, I can say unequivocally that the answer is a firm yes.

As we hit the hills, I was definitely feeling it. We’re still working out the logistics of sharing the effort but the good thing about this is that Dae’s reserves have been fantastic. And so, when it got a bit more difficult than I liked, for whatever strange reason, I put on a bad Scottish accent and was Scotty, telling the crew that I couldn’t push any more and that my legs were going to blow. Fortunately I had my own Captain Kirk sitting behind me to encourage me. And unlike the real Kirk, this one stepped it up and we made the hill with energy to spare. After hitting a few more longer hills, Spock and McCoy also made an appearance to get into the fray until one hilarious moment when my iPhone ride tracking application used it’s female voice to tell us our average speed (5 km/hr better than our last ride!), how far and how long we’d gone. Behind me, Kirk didn’t miss a beat and thanked Lt. Uhura for her update.

And so it went, out beyond the eastern border of Toronto to Pickering and then north to the northern edge of Toronto/Pickering into Markham before we stopped at the rest stop for a quick sandwich and water refill. Surprisingly, despite our late start, there were lots of people there and still more people came in behind us. Even with a heavy tandem we were holding our own. Good on us!

Having refueled we both felt much better and the road took a downward turn for a while which was a further blessing. And then it took an even steeper downturn and at first we were thrilled. It’s exhilarating after riding slowly uphill for much of the day to have a fast descent. Until, that is, we had to pay the piper. There was the biggest hill of our ride – just as big as the one we’d come down. And then there were a few more of these mixed blessings. After a couple of these I was wiped out. And the heat was rising. But still, Kirk pressed us further onward. And so it went until we edged back into the sprawl and traffic of the inner suburbs. And with this shift came the end of the shade trees and the beginning of wide expanses of asphalt.

Before long the heat was starting to get to me. The sun was bad, and the heat coming up from the pavement made it like being in a convection oven. But then, about 4 km from the end of the ride came the happy sight of a Dairy Queen. We made a quick stop, found some shade and a treat.

You know how sometimes the right thing comes at the right time? This was perfectly timed. A little sugar to make up for all the calories we burned, something cool to eat, a bit of time in the shade, and time to drink a bunch more water. The last few KM were dramatically different than the riding just before we stopped and by the end including a few detours we made for getting lost in various ways, we had gone a total of almost exactly 60 km. We returned to the subway tired and pleased with ourselves.

And this is why I love traveling by bike – because it goes at a human pace and encourages just this sort of interaction between people.

In last week’s Coordinated Kindness I invited everyone to remember what it was like in a time not so long ago when we routinely sent and received letters. After so many years of email, facebook, skype, and chatting, this habit has fallen by the wayside for many. Still, most of us appreciate getting a letter, possibly even more so now that they’re such a rarity.

Several folks posted to the facebook event with suggestions of people to send things to, from six year olds who would love to receive mail, to a stranger from couchsurfing.org who wants to flood his mom’s mailbox with birthday cards for her 75th birthday.

And so many of you responded! By the time the event was over 91 of you were participating. That puts us up to a total of 310 kindnesses pledged. Well within striking distance of our goal. Thanks to all of you who participated!

photo: Peyri Herrera

I pledge to buy a giftcard for a grocery store or Tim’s and give it to a Homeless person. - Pledge #219 – Toronto, Ontario

photo: I-5 Design & Manufacture

This pledge is from Daegan and I. For some time we have been thinking about the logistics of getting the tandem bike back from New York City at the end of the ride. Sure, we do have a travel case for it, which we got through a touching act of kindness in and of itself. The other option was to ride back home – certainly possible with the time we have – if we don’t make many long stops. But in the end, the best solution was right in front of us.

A while back I posted on the Facebook page about the Toronto Trailblazers, a group which provides people who have limited or no vision the opportunity to experience cycling with our sighted volunteers, using tandem bicycles. It occurred to me that there must be a similar group in New York City and I suspected that they might be able to use ours and a quick google search proved this to be the case. And so, after a few emails, our bicycle will have a new home when we arrive in New York City with the lovely folks at Achilles International.

photo: Achilles International

I am baking cookies for a local girl who is trying to raise money for a youth trip she got selected to go on to Italy. - Pledge #217 – S. Royalton, VT

photo: Dennis Wilkinson

photo: Kasey D

I will give someone something I had and they didn’t. - Pledge #215 – Boulder, Colorado

photo: Juliette

So for this event, all you need to do to participate is to send something personal by post. Whether it’s a friendly letter, a box of cookies, a photo, or a mix tape (hey, since we’re using ‘old technology’, we might as well go all the way here!).  If it was thrilling to receive postal mail in the mid 90s when it was still common, imagine how exciting it will be today!

Log your participation using the pledge form, or by adding yourself to the facebook event.

Mailbox image courtesy of Pocius.