Welco
me to Week Two of the PATH Sizzlin’ Summer Challenge. Performing a random act of kindness is the name of the game this week and the possibilities are infinite. It may be as simple as opening a door for someone or offering to carry a package for an elderly person whose hands are full. Or perhaps it’s a bit more involved and requires more time; Donating blood, pulling off on a roadside to help an individual in distress, assisting someone who has taken a spill, offering to mow someone’s lawn or bringing a neighbor a freshly picked pint of raspberries.
As I write this I remain mesmerized by the random acts of kindness hundreds of individuals are providing to the 12 boys and their football coach who have been trapped inside Thailand’s Tham Luang cave for the past two 
weeks. Since being discovered alive by a group of British divers, a team of 90 expert divers ,40 from Thailand and 50 from overseas, have been working in the cave system. They have repeatedly carried food, water and oxygen to the youth through the cave’s treacherous conditions and have done their best to provide impromptu swimming lessons to further assure the boys’ safety as they attempt to extricate them through the water-filled cave using scuba diving equipment.
And that’s not all. Around the cave’s entrance, hundreds of volunteers have set up a 24 hour tent city and are 
preparing thousands of meals each day for the youth, their family members and the volunteers. Thailand’s king is fully on board demonstrated by his commitment to send multiple truckloads of food to the site. A method for family members to communicate with their children inside the cave is now in place. Contractors have worked day in and out to set up huge machines that pump thousands of liters of water every hour from the cave.
As I believe is fully evidenced by Thailand’s and other countries response to this harrowing rescue operation, the energy that is unlocked when we engage in random acts of kindness is immeasurable and contagious. Researchers have found that one’s level of happiness and one’s sense of well-being immediately increases following a random act of kindness. On top of that, individuals performing random acts of kindness are apt to feel the “helper’s high”, made possible because the neurochemicals dopamine, serotonin and endogenous opioids are released and kick into gear. Ka Ching!!!
And when two or more people are engaged in kindness oriented behavior, more oxytocin, also known as the love hormone, is released. In fact, the simple witnessing of others being kind can release the same “feel good” chemicals that doing an act of kindness can produce.
This energy is easily transferred to the recipients of acts of kindness, making it much more likely that they will share kindness with others, creating the magic of contagiousness. Feeling connected melds people together and kindness is a powerful way to strengthen a sense of community and belonging.
My first memory of performing a random act of kindness was preparing May Day baskets of wildflowers and delivering them anonymously at the crack of dawn to some households in my neighb
orhood. I was all of six years of age when I began what became a yearly tradition until I became a distracted teenager. Surprising people in this way brought me tremendous pleasure. Now I realize I was probably experiencing “the helper’s high.”
We are anxious to see how you engage in a random act of kindness this week and we look forward to your posts. Imagine how it will feel to lift up your heart and your soul. As a result, perhaps your random act of kindness will catch on causing an epidemic of kindness.
See you on the PATH Ahead,
Shevonne, Gillian, Amy and Ashley.