During the holiday season, we expect most of the gifts we receive to come off a shelf. But at Western States Lodging Management, the gifts often come off the cuff. As part of their 10 x 30 Kindness challenge, 5,000 associates across five states were invited to complete 10 daily acts of kindness throughout a month-long period beginning on World Kindness Day, Nov. 13 and ending on December 13. While an act of kindness can be small, Chief Revenue Officer and spokeswoman Jennifer Knecht believes it can have an outsized impact.
“When you look at the statistics, the Surgeon General and the CDC both have declared loneliness as an epidemic in this country, and especially during COVID all of us in senior living fully understand what COVID-19 did to our residents,” Knecht said. “The next best step for us is to start to combat some of the loneliness that we know that folks feel, especially during the holidays. We’ve all taken the charge as associates, we’re nearly 5,000 strong. If we perform just 10 acts of kindness a day, we impact 1.5 million acts of kindness in 30 days. That’s a big ripple.”
But it is not only the associates who are participating in the challenge, residents have been inspired to be part of the fun. And those good deeds are not restricted to their senior living communities, but the greater community as a whole.
“Our residents have gotten super involved in it as well. They’ve taken upon themselves to think about ways in which they can engage with the greater community,” Knecht said. “We had one of our senior living campuses where the residents there are doing a food drive for a local homeless shelter. We started with our associates being the ones challenged and they shared what they were doing and the residents kind of took it and ran with it.”
As the campaign approaches its final week, spirits remain high and there has been no shortage of good deeds. While it is nice to receive a gift, sometimes the best present is the feeling you get when you give to others.
“If you knock on somebody’s door who wasn’t expecting you just to drop by and say hi, that can really make their day,” Knecht said. “If you pick up your phone, you can go through your list of contacts and just reach out to somebody that you haven’t reached out to in a long time just to say hi. Think about what kind of feeling that creates for you.”
