World Kindness Day — observed annually on Nov. 13 — is exactly what it sounds like:
The holiday is the project of The World Kindness Movement, and can trace its start to the birth of the WKM in Tokyo, in 1997. The day is observed in several countries around the world, according to Wikipedia, including Australia, Italy, Singapore, Canada, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.
This year’s World Kindness Day falls not even a week after Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, leaving more than 1,500 people dead. Want to help? Google’s roundup of resources is a good place to start.
If you’re looking to keep the kindnesses going, the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation maintains a list of “kindness ideas,” which includes cleaning up graffiti, donating used books to your local library, and tutoring schoolchildren.
Observance is simple: be kind; or, even better, do something kind. Will you celebrate?