Kindness is the heart and soul of leadership. It also winds through the face, thorax, and abdomen.
When Patrick Malone talks about emotional intelligence, he often starts with the vagus nerve, which stretches from the top of the spinal cord to the spleen. Our longest cranial nerve helps control our heart rate, aids in digestion, and boosts immune response—but researchers also point to vagal activity as a reaction to kindness and empathy.
Malone, director of AU’s Key Executive Leadership Programs, which have integrated compassion and caring into their curriculum for almost 50 years, uses this example to illustrate to budding leaders our biological capacity for kindness.
“We know that that nerve is stimulated when we give, receive, or witness acts of kindness. We have physical reactions to those things,” Malone says. “It’s there physiologically—that’s the good news—but it’s still hard to reach sometimes.”
An unprecedented and unnerving set of circumstances caused by the global coronavirus pandemic serves as a natural access point.
Irrational fear and misguided anger are unfortunate byproducts of the pandemic, but we’ve also risen to the challenge in many ways, demonstrating humanity and thoughtfulness in the midst of uncertainty. With every socially distanced birthday parade we join, every encouraging note we send, and every meal we donate, we embrace the idea that selflessness can outlive self-quarantine.
“The more we think and behave with kindness, and the more consistently we do it, the more it becomes a default pattern of thinking,” Malone says. “It’s a shame we have to go through this to get there, but it’s good that it’s coming to our attention.”
But in practicing care and concern for others, we cannot overlook the importance of being kind to ourselves. Self-care is a vital first step toward self-awareness, particularly during a stressful time in which many of us spend more time alone—in our homes or in our thoughts.
Whether we take up a new language, take a walk outside on a secluded trail, or take a few deep breaths during an idle moment, we learn to pay ourselves first, Malone says, and not in a selfish way.
“Resilience is not necessarily getting tougher or stronger,” he says. “Resilience can be an issue of prioritizing self-care and taking time for self. That is where [kindness] begins.”
Taking care of ourselves can better equip us to lift family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. And when we need it most, hopefully they respond in kind.
Amid the coronavirus, AU alumni, students, and faculty are stepping up and helping out. These are some of their stories.
ART THERAPY
Josh Kramer, SOC/BA ’09, is not a firefighter, a delivery person, or a grocery worker. But for thousands of parents, his work is essential.
After cities and states began issuing stay-at-home orders in March, the DC cartoonist, whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Atlantic, and New York magazine, began hosting drawing tutorials for children and kids at heart on Facebook Live. Budding artists have learned to draw dinosaurs, unicorns, trucks, Star Wars and Disney characters, and more.
“I can remember being a little kid, and I can just imagine if something like this was happening, not understanding it and trying to figure out why my parents were so scared,” Kramer told patch.com. “I like the idea of just providing an activity that kids can focus on and also I love encouraging kids to draw.”
Kramer offered his last sketching session on June 23, but hopes to offer the tutorials again in the future.
RE-SOURCE CODE
When Ryann Ersoff, SOC/BA ’21, headed west in March to wait out the pandemic with her family in Los Angeles, she felt directionless.
“It was hard for me to have the same level of motivation,” Ersoff says. “It was also a little demoralizing reading all of these horrible articles knowing I wasn’t doing anything.”
Just days into the shutdown, however, she sprang into action—and aggregation. Ersoff filled a Google Doc, first gathering links to resources for Angelenos financially impacted by COVID-19, then expanding to mental health, philanthropy, and even entertainment.
On March 16, she put a call out on Twitter asking for contributions to the document. It exploded—garnering more than a thousand retweets—and six pages of research ballooned to 20 spanning all 50 states. Her outreach drew the attention of journalists, social media influencers, and, fortunately, at least one data scientist: Charles Reed, a data and analytics expert based in Birmingham, Alabama, who suggested creating an app.
Their collaboration launched March 25 with a simple name—COVID-19 Resources—and an equally straightforward mission: connecting people to information and resources in their communities. As of late April, it had 4,100 downloads and more than 27,000 views, and Ersoff and Reed continue to fine-tune. COVID-19 Resources now boasts more than 450 of them—everything from meals to legal assistance to freelance work—an interactive map of testing sites, and a “feeling sick?” tab just in case.
Ersoff spends several hours each day researching, collecting, and vetting new resources. But, unlike most app creators, she looks forward to its obsoletion.
“I’m happy that I can do something and hope it’s helping people,” Ersoff says. “But I wish it wasn’t necessary.”
NOTEWORTHY GESTURE
Madelaine Reis, SPA/MA ’20, returned to her native New York on March 3 for a doctor’s appointment, expecting a quick, four-day trip.
But her visit instead kicked off a frightening chain reaction—shortness of breath and vertigo, a positive COVID-19 test, a hospital stay, and a months-long recovery from the coronavirus and other chronic conditions it has triggered.
“That’s not how I was expecting to spend my spring,” says Reis, who graduated with her master’s in political communication in May. “It really just took a lot of love and kindness from everyone around me to help me heal.”
In the spirit of tikkun olam—Hebrew for “repair of the world”—she began gathering words of hope to help others do the same. While still being treated at St. Francis Hospital in New York, Reis created a Google Form on her phone to launch #LettersForNewYork, a collection of notes of love and encouragement for health care workers and patients in the Big Apple.
Reis was born with congenital anomalies that have resulted in eight surgeries and several hospitalizations. She now advocates for others who have had similar experiences and started #LettersForNewYork within the online chronic illness community. Others quickly took note of the letter-writing campaign.
In just two months, #LettersForNewYork collected 300-plus notes, 30 hand-drawn pictures from children, and 15 self-care kits for ICU nurses, which Reis and several volunteers delivered to four New York hospitals and several Queens nursing homes.
“We’re all in fear, but people just wanted to be hopeful and bring hope into other peoples’ lives,” she says. “That’s what has helped me get through this.”
IN THE FACE OF FEAR
Santiago Guerrero, SPA/BA ’20, is helping to shield thousands of health care workers in the face COVID-19.
In March, Guerrero, brother Patricio, and friend Mattias Cena launched Shield LA in Southern California to produce low-cost and easily transportable personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical workers. The trio—who partnered with Jumpstart Labs to raise $30,000 in donations—has since delivered 20,000 face shields to personnel at 50 hospitals across the US, Mexico, and Switzerland.
“I saw the great need for PPE and the instinct of people all over to donate money to some useful effort,” Guerrero says. “I was happy to help make the connection and get the equipment in the hands of hospitals as quickly as possible.”
Shield LA’s goal was to eliminate the need for multiple supply chains and simplify the manufacturing procedure to a single step. The shields are packaged flat and mailed by the thousands.
It takes a doctor or a nurse just 60 seconds to assemble the shield—which literally has them jumping for joy. Shield LA’s Instagram feed is filled with health care workers dancing as they don their new PPE—and underneath it, smiles of gratitude.
DABL-ING IN PPE
As the world shut down and AU’s online operations ramped up, the Design and Build Lab (DaBL) closed its doors. But the fabrication space’s team couldn’t sit still. They had the equipment and expertise to help out, so they began manufacturing PPE for workers on the front lines.
“We really wanted to do something, because this pandemic makes you feel kind of powerless,” says DaBL director Kristof Aldenderfer, CAS/BS ’07. “We decided we wanted to work with people that need PPE the most: health care workers.”
Many facilities are facing PPE shortages, including face shields that provide an extra barrier between health care workers and patients. The design Aldenderfer and his team of faculty and students chose, approved by the National Institutes of Health, consists of two parts: a 3D-printed visor and a laser-cut plastic shield that covers the face.
Jonathan Newport, physics lab director, worked on legal and liability issues. Physics lecturer Jessica Uscinski, who got the project up and running, organized outreach, while Charles Ingulli, CAS/BS ’14, CAS/MS ’20, handled prototyping and initial testing.
Since access to campus was restricted, each person took a 3D printer home from the lab to print the visors. Working remotely presented a few logistical challenges—materials were shipped to their homes, finished products were mailed back—and a bit of extra background noise courtesy of the printers.
DaBL has been reconfigured with areas for staging, disinfecting, bagging, and labelling face shields for donation. Team members wear PPE—including their own shields—when they work in the lab.
They donated their first batch of 100 face shields to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Southeast Washington and are currently producing more.
The team wishes they could do more, Uscinski says, but the prototyping space isn’t suited for large-scale production. Still, their small efforts will make a big difference for health care workers in our community.
COMFORT FOOD
In good times and in bad, food is love. After COVID-19 began spreading across the US, Michael Bleau, Kogod/BSBA ’07, showed his support for nurses by feeding thousands of them.
The Angeleno, CEO and cofounder of Event Hub, an exhibitor management program, launched Feed Hero Nurses in late March, partnering with Postmates and Sweetgreen to deliver salads to personnel working the overnight and weekend shifts at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica.
“A lot of restaurants are struggling right now,” Bleau says. “So, one of the benefits of the program is that, by serving the overnight units, we’re able to order bulk meals from those restaurants during their slower hours of operation and slower days of the week, to really help them continue to support their employees.”
As donations have increased—to $123,658 as of June 24—so too have the number of hospitals Bleau and his team are serving. They’re now feeding nurses in New York City, Philadelphia, South Florida, and Michigan.
“It may seem like a small thing, but food really is important to us,” says Sarah Elizabeth, a Florida RN and member of the Feed Hero Nurses team. “Right now, it’s hard to bring lunch boxes into the hospital. We’re trying to limit what we bring in, so we don’t bring infection home.
Knowing someone donated [a meal] to us, it’s really a special feeling.”
While Bleau was fine-tuning his recipe on the west coast, Marylander Carly Steren, WCL/JD ’21, and two childhood friends were cooking up something similar in DC.
Steren, Chelsea Widerlite, and Amanda Cohen, a nursing student at NYU, launched Fuel the Fight DC to feed medical personnel, firefighters, and police officers. In just seven weeks, they raised $43,354 and delivered 4,596 meals from 46 local eateries.
“This experience has taught us an incredible amount about the resiliency of the DC metro area,” the women said in a statement. “We are incredibly grateful to each person who came forward to help our mission.”
As the curve began to flatten in the DMV in late May, the trio stopped accepting donations. However,they vowed to “continue to support local business and frontline workers until every penny has been put to work.”
A HELPING HAND (SANITIZER)
During their first 10 years in business, Soapbox CEO Dave Simnick, SPA/BA ’09, and president and COO Dan Doll, Kogod/BSBA ’10, have donated 10 million bars of soap—one for every unit sold—to people in need around the world.
This year, thanks to skyrocketing demand for Soapbox’s new hand sanitizer in the midst of the pandemic, the charitable duo are on track to double their donation to 20 million bars.
Simnick and Doll—who met in an entrepreneurship class at AU—were already planning to add hand sanitizer to their lineup when COVID-19 hit. So, in February, when Starbucks and Wegmans inquired about the product, the pair made it happen. Other clients soon followed.
“In the course of a weekend, we sold millions and millions of units,” Simnick says.
How does a company with eight full-time employees and three contractors switch gears overnight? By staying true to their start-up roots. “The analogy we use is that in our industry, everyone that is a multinational competitor is an aircraft carrier, and we’re a speedboat,” Doll says. “We can make the pivots and direction changes more easily than some of the larger players.”
The small but mighty team continues to crank out sanitizer round-the-clock at four facilities across the US. As production continues to grow, so too does Soapbox’s philanthropic impact. The company is partnering with nonprofits like Clean the World, Eco-Soap Bank, Feeding America, and Feed the Children.
“You go [to AU] because you want to make a difference,” Simnick says. “We see what we’re doing, in a very small way, as helping to provide essential resources to those who need them most. We hope we’ve helped fulfill that mission of what we learned at American.”
A DELICIOUS DISTRACTION
The food was cooked beautifully, but everything else was raw.
Quality food, fun, and family time are the ingredients for Kitchen Quarantine, a Webby Award-winning Instagram series filmed, directed, and executive produced by Alexa Bottura, Kogod/BSBA ’18, from her family’s Modena, Italy, home.
The daughter of world-famous chef Massimo Bottura, owner and operator of three-Michelin-star restaurant Osteria Francescana, was chatting with friends on WhatsApp early in Italy’s lockdown when they asked her, “What’s your dad doing now?” As she filmed him preparing a meal, an idea marinated.
When a streaming video of her father making a simple passatelli drew 3,000 live views, Alexa knew her family had a hit on its hands, and a way to keep others—and themselves—entertained amid quarantine. But it came with an important disclaimer: “This is not a master class. Just chill,” Alexa says. “This is us cooking from home.”
As hundreds of thousands of people looked on, Alexa narrated Massimo’s process in Italian and English; engaged her mother, Lara Gilmore, and brother, Charlie; and documented the sights and sounds of the kitchen with her smartphone. The Botturas slammed drawers and clanged pots and pans. They joked and danced to background music. And they occasionally apologized for running a few minutes behind their usual 8 p.m. start time.
They also underscored the importance of not wasting what’s in the fridge. The Botturas’ May 23 “Last Waltz” episode featured pasta cooked in leftover mussel and pork broth and finished with a sweet blend of chocolate pancakes, sour cherries, caramelized bananas, and whipped cream.
Osteria Francescana reopened June 2, and as Italy’s lockdown ended, so too did Kitchen Quarantine. But while they sheltered in place together, Alexa valued connecting with her family. During a lonely and uncertain time, so did the rest of us.
“For people home alone, this must’ve been a hard time,” she says. “But Kitchen Quarantine gave hope to people. It felt like being with your family.”
HEALTH SERVICES
As grief and fear swept across the country this spring, Professor Trina Ulrich still managed to deliver good by the truckload.
In early March, the AU health studies professorial lecturer learned from her neighbor about an anonymous donor in Asia who wanted to send PPE to the US to help combat the looming pandemic. Ulrich, a doctor who specializes in nutrition, reached out to more than 25 of her medical contacts to assess their needs. The response was overwhelming.
“Every single doctor and nurse I spoke with was begging for equipment,” Ulrich says.
She got to work collecting, organizing, and distributing PPE to hospitals, hospices, free clinics, and nursing homes in DC and beyond. As the benefactor in Asia shipped batches of masks and face shields, Ulrich assembled donation boxes outside her Maryland home, asking everyone she knew to pitch in.
Neighbors helped cover shipping expenses and began sewing masks, and Ulrich woke up many mornings to overflowing donation boxes. She made trips to her local post office while her teenage sons delivered supplies to DC area hospitals. In just six weeks, they distributed more than 200,000 pieces of PPE.
As word of Ulrich’s efforts spread, she connected with 3D printing companies in California and Wyoming and helped them coordinate directly with hospital procurement teams. The partnership has enabled hospitals to secure affordable—and essential—masks and face shields that meet their specifications.
PPE remains a critical need, but one Ulrich is helping to meet through an expansive network and “random acts of kindness and generosity.”
UNITED BY A COMMON THREAD
Ryan Jolley, SPA/BA ’20, is strengthening the moral fabric of our society.
A couple of years ago, the former AU swimmer began selling custom shirts and socks through her business, Rydye. She had never made a face mask, nor was she much of a seamstress—but in March, she stitched together a plan to aid first responders.
While waiting out the pandemic at home in Roswell, Georgia, Jolley and her family sewed and sold 700-plus masks to raise more than $4,000 for Project Cure, which has shipped $3 million worth of masks, gloves, and PPE to medical professionals across the country.
“I wanted to encourage people around me to start wearing masks and stay safe during the pandemic,” Jolley says. “At the same time, I wanted to contribute to relief efforts.”
Becca AbuRakia-Einhorn, SIS/MA ’15, SPA/MPA ’18, director of education abroad at Gallaudet University, has always enjoyed the gentle, soothing hum of the sewing machine. So, when she began scrambling to evacuate students back to the US in early 2020, she turned to her hobby to decompress. Sewing masks gave her a feeling of control in the midst of unprecedented disruption.
The Brookland resident set up a Google Form in late March and within 48 hours, orders soared above 150. Late at night and on the weekends, she kept her sewing machine whirring, while her husband, Waseem AbuRakia-Einhorn, Kogod/BSBA ’18, Kogod/MS ’19, an IT services manager at AU, cut fabric and trimmed threads. AbuRakia-Einhorn asked everyone who ordered a mask to make a donation of $5 to $20 if they could, and she’s since raised more than $2,500 for several Washington nonprofits.
While the bobbins aren’t bobbing as quickly as they once did, AbuRakia-Einhorn—who works from home full-time while taking care of her one-year-old son, a schedule she calls “absolutely exhausting”—still makes a few small batches here and there. But at peak production, she felt “empowered, [like] I had a positive way to channel my anxiety.”
AbuRakia-Einhorn manages to thread the needle to find time for others, even when it seams nonexistent.
PRECIOUS CARGO
Actions speak louder than words for Maryland first lady Yumi Hogan, CAS/MFA ’10.
On April 18, the South Korea native stood on the tarmac alongside her husband, Governor Larry Hogan, as a Korean Air passenger plane landed at BWI Marshall Airport, carrying 500,000 COVID-19 tests.
The Hogans launched Operation Enduring Friendship on March 28, when the Republican governor asked his wife of 16 years to join him on a call with Lee Soo Hyuck, Korea’s ambassador to the United States.
“The call set in motion 22 straight days of vetting, testing, negotiations, and protocols between our scientists and doctors, eight Maryland state government agencies, and our counterparts in Korea,” Governor Hogan said at a press conference in Annapolis on April 20. “We convened countless calls nearly every night—sometimes it seemed like all night—working through language barriers and a 13-hour time difference.”
When the historic flight finally touched down in Maryland “carrying a very important payload” of LabGenomics test kits, the Old Line State instantly boasted a testing capacity equal to that of four of the top five states, combined.
Yumi Hogan, an accomplished painter who immigrated to the US more than 40 years ago, maintained a busy schedule before the coronavirus struck, working on issues like human trafficking, opioid addiction, and arts education. “I’m not a politician,” she told American magazine in 2015. “Before I was first lady, I was an artist. I want to help the art community. I was a single mom. I know how hard it is to survive. I can share my story.”
While she hasn’t spoken publicly about her role in the story that made national headlines this spring, her husband praised her efforts on behalf of Marylanders, more than 3,000 of whom have died from COVID-19.
“She truly is a champion of Operation Enduring Friendship,” Governor Hogan said, his voice cracking. “You may know that she is the first Asian first lady in the history of our state, but she is also the very first Korean American first lady of any state in the history of the United States, which is why Maryland is proud to have such a special bond with South Korea.”
HOMEGROWN HUMANITARIANS
When the coronavirus turned spring break in her native India into an indefinite stay, Hriyanka Shah, CAS-SPA/MS ’21, focused her attention on the millions of Mumbaikars living in poverty.
In March, Shah and six friends launched Youth Feed India, a nonprofit that provides food and supplies to the city’s most vulnerable residents amid the country’s strict lockdown.
“We quickly realized it wasn’t enough to just give people hot meals,” Shah says. “They needed relief kits with essentials like lentils, rice, sugar, cooking oil, soap, and detergent.”
Shah, who’s studying data science at AU, uses her expertise to model Youth Feed India’s costs to maintain transparency with donors. In April, they had plenty of positive figures to report. The organization raised funds for 5,562 kits—at a cost of $7.15 each—which could feed more than 30,000 people for a week.
But the work didn’t stop there. The group has since launched a second fundraising effort focusing on Mumbai’s LGBTQ, HIV-positive, and sex worker communities.
On the other side of the world in Honduras, Ana Lezama, Kogod/BSBA ’20, also poured her expertise—communications—into a timely humanitarian movement. “We have so much knowledge and so much training coming out of AU, and it’s our responsibility to use that in the world,” she says.
Combining their strengths in PR, graphic design, videography, and computer programming, Lezama and a dozen friends formed Operación Frijol—“Operation Bean”—to raise money for packages of rice, flour, and, of course, beans for needy Honduran families.
Operación Frijol set an ambitious fundraising target of one million lempiras, or about $40,000, in March. But with eye-catching pink and purple branding and a robust social media presence, Operación Frijol’s message resonated with 1,200-plus donors. The group topped its goal in just a month, feeding 3,000 families for a week.
“Un millón de gracias,” read the text of their celebratory Facebook video on April 13. “Thanks a million.”
SPECIAL DELIVERY
When the DC Mutual Aid Network popped up on Facebook in early March as Washingtonians nervously awaited the arrival of COVID-19, it was no surprise that Samantha Davis, SPA/ MPP ’12, took on a leadership role, adding to her plate so others in Wards 7 and 8 might fill theirs.
As founder and executive director of Black Swan Academy—a seven-year-old nonprofit that partners with three Southeast DC middle schools to empower Black youths to become leaders in their community—Davis has long been in the business of organizing and inspiring others.
After stay-at-home orders prevented in-person food and toiletry pickup in mid-March, Davis and her team expanded their volunteer workforce. Most days, between 20 and 25 people field hundreds of calls to the grassroots organization’s hotline, assemble food and toiletry bags, map out routes, and make more than 120 deliveries of meals, masks, and more.
“The idea of Mutual Aid is that we all need each other, we’re all going through this struggle together,” Davis says. “And there’s going to be an ongoing need for that support.”
Across the country, Jada Wittow, SPA/BA ’13, food access coordinator for the Ballard Food Bank in Seattle, also acted quickly to serve clients amid increased demand.
When the Emerald City’s schools closed, Wittow collaborated with parents and school officials to establish alternative pickup locations for their backpack program, which provides weekend meals for 500 area students.
Wittow also teamed up with the food bank’s volunteer coordinator and a data analyst to execute a rapid but safe transition to a new food distribution model. In late March, the nonprofit opened a drive-through for grocery pickup and ramped up deliveries of oatmeal, pasta, canned meat, peanut butter, and soup from 120 a week to almost 700.
“It definitely felt insurmountable when we first started talking about it,” Wittow says. “But in hindsight, we did make a pretty remarkable switch in not a lot of time.”
It’s a new normal, but one that still meets the community’s nourishment needs.
Karen Angell, Adrienne Frank, Patty Housman, Melissa Nyman, Sarah Palaia, Pamela Roberts, and Lizzie White contributed to this story.
99 ways to be a good human: how many did you spot?
1. Park inside the lines.
2. Take off your shoes.
3. Carpool.
4. Stand on the right side of the escalator.
5. Practice empathy.
6. Turn off your ringer.
7. Make an introduction.
8. Give a heads-up if you’re running late.
9. Buy lunch for a homeless person.
10. Say hello.
11. Plant a tree.
12. Return your shopping cart.
13. Leave it better than you found it.
14. Give someone else a turn.
15. Buy donuts for the office.
16. Hold the elevator.
17. Don’t gossip.
18. Eat local.
19. Feed a stranger’s expired meter.
20. Give directions.
21. Stay home if you’re sick.
22. Don’t slam doors.
23. Wash your hands.
24. Sing someone else’s praises.
25. Shake hands with a firm grip.
26. Use headphones.
27. Mow an elderly neighbor’s lawn.
28. Bring your own grocery bags.
29. Let someone merge in front of you.
30. Don’t litter.
31. Don’t grunt in the gym.
32. Wave.
33. Lift up the seat.
34. Volunteer.
35. Don’t wait to be asked.
36. Return library books on time.
37. Welcome new neighbors.
38. Ask, “How about you?”
39. Wipe down equipment after your workout.
40. Tip well.
41. Tweet others as you want to be tweeted.
42. Chip in for classroom supplies.
43. Take the seat closest to the window.
44. Buy the next round of drinks.
45. Carry someone else’s groceries.
46. Subscribe to your local newspaper.
47. Vote.
48. Celebrate diversity.
49. Pick up after your dog.
50. Support your alma mater.
51. Carry a reusable straw.
52. Be the designated driver.
53. Wait until a break in the action to shimmy across the row at a sporting event.
54. Help someone up if they fall.
55. Lay off the horn.
56. Hold the door.
57. Don’t assume the last slice is yours.
58. Say “on your left” when passing pedestrians on a bike or scooter.
59. Clean up the communal microwave.
60. Use a bookmark—don’t dog-ear pages.
61. Buy a stranger coffee.
62. Get off your phone when you’re placing your order.
63. Listen to the other side.
64. Don’t interrupt.
65. Write a thank-you note.
66. Recycle.
67. Get an item off the shelf for someone who can’t reach.
68. Use a coaster.
69. Replace the toilet paper.
70. Call your mother.
71. Be a good steward of the environment.
72. Be patient.
73. Think before you speak.
74. Support a nonprofit.
75. Allow someone to cut in line.
76. Turn off the lights.
77. Watch your friends’ kids so they can enjoy a date night.
78. Offer a tissue.
79. Join the PTA.
80. Bring cookies to your neighborhood fire station.
81. RSVP.
82. Learn names.
83. Don’t eat odorous food on the train or bus.
84. Take your call outside.
85. Be a mentor.
86. Frequent independent businesses.
87. Adopt a rescue animal.
88. Send flowers just because.
89. Loan a book to a friend.
90. Be on time.
91. Bring dinner to new parents.
92. Give up your seat for someone who needs it more.
93. Don’t break up over text.
94. Donate gently used books to the school library.
95. Don’t assume everyone loves your dog.
96. Watch your language around kids.
97. Get out of the way for lights and sirens.
98. Offer a compliment.
99. Remember your manners.