FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. (WKRG) — There is a sense of community service flying around Northwest Florida Thursday for National Random Act of Kindness Day.
FISH Window Cleaning is in its first year of business in Okaloosa County. For their random act of kindness, they chose to lend a helping hand to Children in Crisis (CIC).
“This is a wonderful thing. FISH came to us and said we’d like to do a random act of kindness and I said we need that. They didi a wonderful job and they are doing a wonderful job and we appreciate everyone, not just them but everyone who comes to help us.”
Ken Hair, President and CEO of Children in Crisis
FISH Window Cleaning employees spent Thursday cleaning the windows on the CIC clubhouse, and a newly remodeled home. This random act of kindness keeps money needed for foster care with CIC, rather than spending it on the facility.
“It’s a tough business being a non-profit out there and you are trying to provide homes for children and everything that goes with that. So we are very delighted that they stepped up and helped us,” said Hair.
FISH cleaned the exterior doors using a water-fed cleaning system. They also scrubbed the window screens and vacuumed the tracks under the windows.
“We have 6-7 on their way to be here to participate. We brought our whole team today,” said FISH owner Danica LaFaire. “Everyone really cares about being able to give back and just share with the community. “
The CIC has five foster homes on the property, an emergency shelter, and a teen transition home to help foster kids in Northwest Florida stay together with their siblings. Hair said if you want to help CIC, the best way is to donate money or donate food to the food pantry.
“People can bring food. Nonperishable food. Items and help us so that the Houseparents don’t have to use their funds to buy food. It’s a win-win that way,” said Hair.
CIC is also searching for more foster parents to move into fully furnished homes and take care of more incoming kids.
“We’ll see about 100 kids per year. We just give we just gave our one 1000 child at home about a month ago, so we’ve given since 2008. We’ve given a home to 1000 children,” said Hair.
“Children in Crisis provides a home to foster children. There’s a severe shortage of foster homes in our community, and we wanted to do something about it,” said Hair. “So in 2003 we incorporated and built this neighborhood that has five foster homes and an emergency shelter for those kids who are out there and in unsafe conditions.”
“We also have a pantry. We’re building a therapy center so we have wrap-around services for all the children that come to us and we take care of them and make sure that they get back on the path to having a wonderful childhood,” said Hair.
The National Day Calendar provided a list of ways to observe Random Act of Kindness Day.
- Pay for the coffee or meal of the person in front of you in line.
- Leave a kind note for someone, no explanation is needed.
- Share words of encouragement. You never know who might need them.
- Put your skills to work for someone in need. For example, offer to create a résumé for someone seeking a new job.
- Drop off a load of groceries at the local food pantry.
- Mail a “thinking of you” card to someone you’ve not to talk to in a while.
- Order a bouquet of flowers to be delivered to anyone in the hospital. That means, call the florist and tell them to pick a hospital or nursing home and deliver flowers to the person the front desk thinks needs it the most. It could be a sick child, an elderly person with no family, or a college student down on their luck.
- Send a thank-you note to the local fire department, police departments, or any military personnel.
- Just smile.
- Share your random acts of kindness using #RandomActsOfKindnessDay to post on social media.
According to the National Day Calendar, Josh de Jong of New Zealand founded National Random Acts of Kindness Day.
