One Kind Act Calls for Submissions

One Kind Act is now accepting submissions for its first anthology. One Kind Act is a social movement aimed at making lives happier and more fulfilling while making the world a better place … One Kind Act at a time.

Life is all about interacting. We forget that as we speed past other people in shiny boxes on the highway, or buy our morning coffee from a stranger in a window, or pump gas next to five other people never lifting our heads to see who they are.

But when we choose to notice the people around us and we act with kindness, we cause a chain reaction. A smile in the grocery store. An open door for a mother struggling with a baby carriage. A double batch of soup so there is extra for a neighbor. When we give and receive these gifts, we realize it really is the small things that matter.

We at One Kind Act have heard a lot of your stories and now we want to anthologize them to inspire and motivate others. We are looking for stories of both givers and recipients of Kind Acts. They may be with strangers, family members, or friends in private or professional settings. Don’t think your story isn’t what we’re looking for. If a Kind Act popped into your head, send it to us. And tell your friends. The more diverse, the merrier.

Guidelines

• Nonfiction stories and essays can be between 200 – 2000 words in length.
• Please submit your stories electronically as an attachment (word or pdf format) or in the body of your email to stories@onekindact.com. Subject line: “Anthology.”
• You may submit anonymously. However, if you would like to be credited, please include you name, city, state, country, age, profession, or any other pertinent details you would like us to include. Limit is a 65-70 word bio. Inclusions of web address will be considered.

Other Details

• You retain all rights to your work. We just need one-time and electronic reprint rights.
• Will reserve the right to edit your story for consistency, grammar, and spelling.
• You may submit as many stories as you like for consideration. Please send individual submissions separately.
• Deadline for submissions is midnight February 12, 2010. You will be informed by the end of February if your story will be included in the anthology.
• Publication is anticipated mid 2010.

Stay up-to-date about the anthology’s progress at: www.onekindact.com

The Bottom Line
Publishing this anthology is a labor of love for One Kind Act. Hence, we can not pay for contributions. However we will actively promote the anthology and your writing.

*A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book will go to fund One Kind Act.Com to keep the website up and running, as well as,  funding  random acts of kindness.

Thank you for considering a submission.

About the Editors

Matthew Costello is an e-commerce guru and CEO of Web Marketing Advisors, a strategic marketing and business development firm. Matthew is also the founder of One Kind Act, a social movement designed to change the world by motivating others to leap in and really live, just One Kind Act at a time. He is dedicated to helping people focus on kindness and energize their lives. In addition to One Kind Act.Com, he also owns and operates The Winning Attitude.com, a site dedicated to motivation, inspiration, and more.

Julie Luongo is the author of The Hard Way (Forge, 2008), her debut novel, which was met with unanimous critical praise. She holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Temple University and a Bachelor’s from Penn State in Advertising. She is a former writing instructor, editor, and playwright. She always thanks cashiers; waves people through in traffic, and sometimes even smiles at strangers. In addition Julie played a large role in the creation of One Kind Act.Com and continues to do so.

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Copyright© 2009 ONE KIND ACT.COM. All Rights Reserved.

We love stories of both givers and recipients of Kind Acts. They may be with strangers, family members, or friends in private or professional settings. Don’t think your story isn’t what we’re looking for. If a Kind Act popped into your head, send it to us. And tell your friends. The more diverse, the merrier.

Also, we are compiling an anthology of stories to inspire and motivate others. So, if you share a story, it just might make it into our book!

Thank you,

Your Friends at One Kind Act.com

Please submit your stories electronically as an attachment (.word or .pdf format) or in the body of your email to stories@onekindact.com. Subject line: “Anthology.”

In a world of six billion people, it’s easy to believe that the only way to initiate profound transformation is to take extreme action. Each of us, however, carries within us the capacity to change the world in small ways for better or worse. Everything we do and think affects the people in our lives, and their reactions in turn affect others. As the effect of a seemingly insignificant word passes from person to person, its impact grows and can become a source of great joy, inspiration, anxiety, or pain. Your thoughts and actions are like stones dropped into still waters, causing ripples to spread and expand as they move outward. The impact you have on the world is greater than you could ever imagine, and the choices you make can have far-reaching consequences. You can use the ripple effect to make a positive difference and spread waves of kindness that will wash over the world.

Should the opportunity arise, the recipient of a good deed will likely feel compelled to do a good deed for someone else. Someone feeling the effects of negative energy will be more likely to pass on that negative energy. One act of charity, one thoughtful deed, or even one positive thought can pass from individual to individual, snowballing until it becomes a group movement or the ray of hope that saves someone’s life. Every transformation, just like every ripple, has a point of origin. You must believe in your ability to be that point of origin if you want to use the ripples you create to spread goodness. Consider the effect of your thoughts and actions, and try to act graciously as much as possible.

A smile directed at a stranger, a compliment given to a friend, an attitude of laughter, or a thoughtful gesture can send ripples that spread among your loved ones and associates, out into your community, and finally throughout the world. You have the power to touch the lives of everyone you come into contact with and everyone those people come into contact with. The momentum of your influence will grow as your ripples moves onward and outward. One of those ripples could become a tidal wave of love and kindness.

Reprinted with permission from DailyOM.com – Inspirational thoughts for a happy, healthy and fulfilling day. Register for free at www.dailyom.com © 2004-2009 DailyOM -All Rights Reserved.

Technorati Tags: one kind act, the ripple effect, random acts of kindness, dailly acts of kindness, helping others, being kind

Acts of kindness and generosity come in many different forms: Giving food to a hungry stranger, donating one’s time to aid homeless people or helping a fellow tenant make the rent. But it’s their ability to touch us and stick in our memories that makes sometimes even small gestures a powerful and lasting force in our lives.

Couple years ago, NPR invited listeners to share stories about “good deeds” they had witnessed or heard about. The original audio program highlighted some of the stories, but there were many more that couldn’t be fit into the short time slot. Below are some of those gems:

After the Storm
Beverly Jordan witnessed an extraordinary act of generosity after Hurricane Andrew slammed into South Florida in 1992, leaving a wide path of destruction in its path. Jordan, a nurse, volunteered to go door to door in Miami delivering emergency relief.

Her relief van pulled up to a house that was nothing but a shell. She asked the young owners if they needed anything. “They said, ‘No, but can you wait a minute here?’ They came back out with a case of diapers and four or five bags of food and said, ‘Would you please give this to somebody who needs it worse than we do?’”

Jordan says she never got the couple’s name and wishes that she could thank them for their generosity.

The Most Memorable Christmas
Amy Scharman of Mapleton, Utah, remembered the Christmas after her parents divorced. Her mother was raising 13 kids with no child support. The holiday was looking pretty grim.

“It was about dusk on Christmas Eve and we heard a knock on the back door,” Scharman says. When they opened it, no one was there. But someone had left 10 big bags filled with presents for the children, including clothes and toys.

“It was such an overwhelming feeling to see such generosity from I don’t even know who it was,” she says. Ten years later, Scharman and her family still don’t know who did that good deed. Amy Scharman ends her note, “If you’re out there, thank you for making that Christmas the most memorable of all.”

A Mother’s Good Example
Sometimes witnessing a good deed leaves a lasting impression. Donna Delfino Dugay of Harper Woods, Mich., remembers a day in California when she was 11 years old, and her parents took their six children for a special day at the beach. Donna’s mother brought a picnic lunch — fried chicken and her famous potato salad — and prepared a plate for each of them.

“When I looked up from my plate, my mother was fixing one more plate… She turned away from us and walked over maybe 20 or 30 feet to where there was a man by himself. And he was picking his way through the trashcan. And my mother — I don’t know whether she just put the plate there or whether she touched him gently or whether she said a few words — but I remember him turning to her in a gesture of thankfulness.”

Dugay’s mother came back and sat down at the table. “Years later, Dugay asked her mother if she remembered the incident. “She laughed and said, ‘Not at all.’ But for me, I remember it very well because for me, it was the touchstone for what good deeds became in my life.”

Never Too Young to Help
Many listeners wrote of the generosity of very young people, Stamberg reports. Four-year-old Justin Dingman took the hand of a frightened fellow pre-schooler, serving as the welcoming committee on the boy’s first day at school. Liadan Susoeff, 7, took books to a shelter in Pittsburgh at holiday time and read to the children there. Eight-year-old Luke O’Neill took one of his own coats to school so a less fortunate classmate could go outside at recess.

‘A King’s Ransom’
Peter Strupp of Boston remembers being “flat broke” his senior year at the University of Wisconsin. When he could no longer afford the rent at his fraternity, he found refuge in a campus Christian fellowship house.

Strupp would sneak into the kitchen to take food bought by his fellow tenants. “Inevitably the month came that I couldn’t make the rent…

“The night before I was going to tell my housemates I was leaving, one of them stopped me in the kitchen. We were alone… He reached into his pocket and handed me a month’s rent, in cash. Before I could say anything, he said, ‘Don’t pay me back.’ Though the rent was less than $100, Strupp writes, “in a dark hour, it was a king’s ransom.”

Kindness in Passing
A simple act of kindness on a hot day nearly 50 years ago left a lasting memory for Dan Sullivan.

“There is hardly anything more boring than traveling in a military convoy,” Sullivan writes. “In late 1955, a deuce-and-a-half truck filled with a dozen GIs and I were crawling across northern Iowa. It was hot, even with the canvas sides rolled up. There were no stops for sodas, and the 30 thirsty miles per hour took us nowhere forever. One of the few entertainments was watching an occasional car pass, so when a convertible pulled in behind, we took notice — even more notice when the beautiful woman in the passenger seat waved and smiled. And oh, miracle, she reached back into a cooler and pulled out two bottles of ice-cold Royal Crown Cola, which she passed up to us as they went by. Wherever that woman is, I hope she sleeps well tonight.”

Giving at Work
David Hutmacher of Marietta, Ga., wrote of the generosity he received from co-workers when he became seriously ill three years ago. After three hospital stays, including two surgeries, he had used up all of his vacation and sick leave.

“It was the end of the year and my last paycheck at the first of December was for approximately 10 percent of its usual amount. I was worried it was fast approaching Christmas and I wouldn’t be going back to work until mid-January at the earliest. I am married and have two daughters who at that time were 8 and 5, respectively. My wife, who is a schoolteacher, was just barely keeping things together. I really didn’t think there would be much if any Christmas that year. So I was very surprised when on the 15th of December I received a paycheck. When I opened it there was not only a full pay period but also the pay I was missing from the previous check. I immediately called our comptroller for an explanation. It seems that all the employees had gotten together and donated any vacation that they had left for the year so I could get paid. I cried. It was truly a Good Deed.”

About The Post
This post has been re-printed from HelpOthers.org a fantastic website dedicated to helping others. You can read many more stories by visiting their website @ www.helpothers.org. Copyright 2009 – HelpOthers.org, All Rights Reserved

Technorati Tags: be kind, daily acts of kindness, Helping Others, kindness, one kind act, random acts of kindness, small acts of kindness