The Kindness Connection

"Everyone can be great. Because everyone can serve," Martin Luther King Jr. said, as quoted by The Kindness Connection on its website. As such, I felt it was only appropriate for me to do my share on my day off. Along with a few of my fellow Rotaract members, I volunteered at The Kindness Connection's Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in Winnetka, Ill.

Children, parents and seniors helped The Kindness Connection make handmade crafts benefiting organizations such as homeless shelters, The Hadley School for the Blind, Hines VA Hospital and the Special Olympics. While the children busy decorating place mats and making door hangers may not have entirely understood the causes, the simple knowledge that service is appropriate for all ages and that they, as children, can help others is an early way to inspire philanthropy. Plus, the event was successful. Children hopped from table to table, wanting to make picture frames, decorate wooden toys and draw on place mats. More than 100 volunteers came, which tripled the average number of participants at their past events, according to the organization's director of marketing Robyn Hall.

I could not think of a better way to spend my day off than to hang out with children and give back to the community.