Random Acts of Kindness

An article in the August 2016 issue of Lions magazine described a service project called Random Acts of Kindness. The club provided individual Lions members a $100 bill and a card describing the program and its purpose.

The Lion delivered this donation in a random act of kindness to a needy individual. 

Lion John Schmitt requested Board consideration of a service project like this, with benefits including real Lions service delivered, individual Lions directly engaged and motivated, relatively low cost, few volunteer hours and overhead efficiently utilized. Also, each Lion delivering a donation would report at a club meeting, so all PNL Lions could get a positive feeling of service delivered. The Board approved a committee to develop a proposal.

At the September, 2016 Board meeting, the committee proposed an approach based on consideration of the realities accompanying this service and responsible handling of funds entrusted to PNL by the public. They reported challenges and uncertainties exist and the situation in Prescott differs from that of the club in the Lions magazine.

The committee was enthusiastic to continue working to achieve proper implementation to directly help people whose lives are temporarily disrupted by an event such as job loss, sickness, etc. with a $100 cash gift. They proposed a trial run of the project to gain insight, with service as the priority. The Board approved a $600 trial program to involve six Lions and be completed by Christmas. At the December Board meeting, the Random Acts of Kindness committee reported successful completion of the trial run. The process developed through the trial proved effective. Also, ongoing testimonials at club meeting by Lions who delivered these donations were very favorable.

The Board approved establishing a four-member committee to manage the RAoK effort and $3000 as donations for 2017. At the meeting an additional $1,000 donation to this project was received from an anonymous donor.

The project was officially launched in January, 2017. By August of 2017, seventeen donations had been made to needy people. RAoK continues to be an ongoing Club project. In 2020 the dollar amount for the cash gift was increased to a maximum of $200.