How would YOU use $100 to Perform some Random Acts of Kindness (and a Giveaway!)

Once upon a time, a woman realized she had forgotten her checkbook and was unable to pay for her groceries. The woman behind her at the checkout line paid her bill; she gave the first woman her address so she could send a payment check. The first woman repaid her, along with a little extra as a thank-you. The second woman decided to donate that thank-you money to a local food bank. When friends found out what she had done, they matched the donation. Their friends matched it too, and before long the 93 Dollar Club was born.

It also inspired a wonderful movement on Yahoo! called How Good Grows. You can use the site to share the good deeds you've done -- and maybe inspire other people to do the same. All you have to do to join in is:

* Do a good deed! It doesn't have to be a Bill-Gates-vaccinating-Africa kind of deed, it can be something as small as paying the bridge toll for the car behind you.

* Update your status on Yahoo! with what you've done at kindness.yahoo.com.

* Share your update on other social networks and see your ripple of kindness grow as others click on your update, "like" the good deed you've done, and share a good deed of their own.



Your good deed doesn't even have to involve donating money -- for instance, the good deed I entered today had to do with helping out a friend in need -- but I'm honored to announce that this holiday season, Yahoo! has given me and other Yahoo! Motherboard members $100 to perform some random acts of kindness and help brighten other people's holiday season! Now this is what I call blogging for good! I am so excited to be a part of this! I can't wait to start -- and I hope you'll join me in performing some random acts of kindness of your own.

The only problem is... I don't know what to do with the money. There are so many great ways to use that $100, and so many people who could use it. Here are some suggestions Yahoo! gave me:

* Pay for a portion of someone's groceries at a local grocery store
* Go to checkout at a toy store and pay for someone's toys
* Go to the Post Office and offer to pay shipping costs for holiday gifts
* Hand out umbrellas on a rainy day
* Go to a local ice cream parlor and pay for ice cream cones
* Pay for people's checked luggage or curbside bag check
* Buy a handful of tickets for the Nutcracker (or some other holiday show) and drop them off at a local Boys and Girls Club
* Check out http://kindness.yahoo.com for more ideas

All I know for sure is that I want to involve my whole family, and I prefer that the recipients of the money don't realize who it came from. So what should I do to spread some kindness this holiday season? I'd love to hear your suggestions.


Win a $5 Dunkin Donuts gift card
To make things more interesting, I'm performing a random act of kindness and buying one Bonggamom Finds reader a cup of coffee! To put it another way, I've bought a $5 Dunkin Donuts gift card and I'm giving it away to a randomly selected commenter on this post......


Required Entry
Leave a comment on this post and tell me what you would do if you were given $100 to perform a random act (or acts) of kindness. This entry must be completed for other entries to count.


Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following. Please leave a separate comment on this post for each extra entry, with a way to verify the entry (i.e. tweet link, blog post link, blog comment link, Facebook id, Twitter id, etc.).


1) Go to http://kindness.yahoo.com/Hjw-u0 (which takes you to the kindness ripple I started) and share your own act of kindness, then come back here and leave a comment with the URL of the kindness ripple you've started-- you will see your own unique URL after you click on the "Share" button (1 entry).

2) Find my (bonggamom's) kindness ripple and click on "like", then come back here and leave a comment telling me you did (1 entry).

3) Share this with your Facebook friends (1 entry):
Visit the Yahoo! How Good Grows site and share an act of kindness you've performed recently (or plan to). You could inspire others to do the same. Start a ripple of #kindness and see How Good Grows! http://ow.ly/3fh2l

4) Tweet this, up to once per day (1 entry per day, leave a comment with the tweet link for each tweet):
RT @bonggamom Visit Yahoo! How Good Grows & share your act of kindness! You could inspire others 2 do the same #kindness http://ow.ly/3fh2l

5) Tweet this, up to once per day (1 entry per day, leave a comment with the tweet link for each tweet):

Help @bonggamom figure out how to use $100 to spread kindness and enter to win a $5 Dunkin Donuts card http://www.bonggafinds.com


The Rules
This giveaway ends at midnight PST on December 5, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on December 6. I will post the winner's name in the comments section after he/she confirms acceptance. Continental US residents only. For additional giveaway rules, click here. Good luck!

Disclosure: As a part of the Yahoo! Mother Board, I'm excited to be taking part in How Good Grows Through Ripples of Kindness . Yahoo! has given me $100 to do random acts of kindness in the hopes of brightening people's holiday season. I hope you'll be inspired to join me. I did not receive a sample or monetary compensation for this post. The $5 Dunkin Donuts card giveaway is not affiliated with Yahoo! or the Yahoo! Motherboard; I am providing the prize personally. . The views and opinions expressed here are my own.