Sandy MacMillar with daughters Ivy and Violet at their bake sale to support SickKids Hospital
By Kathryn Stocks
The definition for kindness in the Oxford Dictionary is: “The quality of being friendly, generous and considerate.” If that’s all it takes, you’d think people everywhere would be kind most of the time. And yet, when I listen to news or read a major newspaper these days, it feels like kindness has gone missing from our world, especially among some political parties here and in the U.S.
Kindness is something that always makes me feel good. Whether I’m giving it or receiving it, kindness makes my days brighter, more cheerful and more fun. An amazing amount of goodwill is created just by being kind to everyone who crosses your path in a day.
So, on that note, we’ve chosen “Kindness in the community” for our centrespread this month. We’re putting the spotlight on a few people who came to our notice last month for the friendly, generous and considerate things they’ve been doing for others within our neighbourhood and outside of it.
We hope you enjoy their stories and that they encourage you to be as kind as you can this month and this year. The way things are shaping up, we’re going to need all the kindness we can get.
I leave you with a couple of quotes about our topic from ancient Greece and Rome that still ring true after all these years. I hope you’ll take them to heart:
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted“.
Aesop, ancient Greek storyteller
“He who does good to others makes the biggest gift to himself“.
Seneca, ancient Roman philosopher
