Simple. Straightforward. Surprisingly engaging. (Ahem, AOK anyone?) And you said New Yorkers don’t do “nice.” They do, and they do it with a megaphone.

Thanks to Matthew Jensen for bringing this to our attention, and thanks to wooshii for bringing it to his.

Posted in Uncategorized

Hellooo, AOKers!

Kate here, alias: AOKate (yes – it was my destiny). You may have seen me posting to the AOK Blog, taken a gander at the Acts and Observations I’ve posted, or followed my tweets for AOK via the @actsofkindness Twitter handle. Today, I assume another role, that of Community Manager for the burgeoning world of AOK.tv.

I’ll be hitting that fabulous orange “Like” button, encouraging vigorous *flashtagging, and adding my two cents to the many noteworthy AOKs that you post each day. I hope these will be the jumping off point for a robust community dialogue and, in the process, to have the privilege of getting to know all of you better!

In addition, I’m launching a new @AO_Kate Twitter feed that will chronicle my own daily work towards mindfulness and generating as many Cause Currency points as our interns extraordinaire, Sonya Joseph and Matt Salwasser. This may not be possible, but, by Jove, I will try my hardest.

Yours in AOK solidarity,

Kate

Posted in Uncategorized

Here at AOK, our team is working on more than an app and more than a website. We are working on building a community – a living, growing, dynamic space for us to engage more deeply with each other to make an impact locally and, through Cause Currency, across the globe. It’s easy to slip into our routines, to orchestrate our days around maximizing efficiency, to hustle right past someone quietly requesting our help. But it’s also easy to pause for a second, take a look into the eyes of the people who surround us, and remember that we’re in this together. And isn’t it more fun that way?Pictory, the online photojournalism magazine, recently curated a feature entitled, “Local Legends.” These people (and in some cases their animals) have been adding color to their communities for decades, becoming as important to the identity of these diverse neighborhoods as the topography itself. Piragua Man, pictured above, can be reliably found on Avenue C in New York, doling out shaved ice in the summer heat. There are 21 additional Legends featured with gorgeous photography and brief essays here: Local Legends.One of the cool new features of the latest mobile app release is a way to view ‘My AOKs,’ a running list of all the mindful moments and kind gestures you’ve performed or observed since you downloaded the game. I can’t help but wonder what AOKs these local legends might share. As AOK grows, I hope we can find out.

Posted in Uncategorized

If anyone had asked me such a question a week ago, especially in the middle of a restaurant full of great-looking Angelinos, I would have wondered what parallel universe I’d stumbled upon (“Where am I and WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH LOS ANGELES?!”)However, I can now answer this question with ease: I am grateful for vegan spot Cafe Gratitude, which has fulfilled my quest for the delicious/healthy food Holy Grail that I seek but so rarely find. To clarify – I’m not a vegan, but am thrilled when I find any healthful place, vegan or otherwise, that captures my fancy enough to distract from my neighborhood taco cart (the ever-present danger zone).If you imagine such a warmly named vegan restaurant being heavy on the hippie and light on the irony, then you imagine correctly. Cafe Gratitude has embraced rather than shirked this association between food and spirituality. Dishes are named, “I am Fortified,” “I am Energized,” “I am Loved,” etc. and upon presentation the statement is flipped to give you a little empowerment with your side salad. “You are Fortified.” “You are Loved.”It takes a some getting used to if you’ve lost touch with your inner-flower child, but hey, where else can I go geek out about being alive over an amazing bowl of vegetables that actually taste like its made of love and energy??The best part of the whole enterprise is their “I am Grateful” dish. This bowl of satisfaction is like a donation-only yoga class or a museum where they recommend you pay five bucks but nobody’s mad if you can’t. The suggested value is $7, but they’re serious when they say you can pay $0 or $14, funding one for yourself and one for the next guy. Food for the body and the soul – what could be more AOK than that?

Posted in Uncategorized

Sure, you may not have known that April 28th is OFFICIALLY Pay It Forward Day, but now that you do, all those cool micro-kindnesses you do out in your world have their own holiday. AND their own app.Pay It Forward Day marks the launch of our beta app in the iTunes App Store and the Android Marketplace. It’s there for you on Pay It Forward Day and every day after that! Get the iTunes app here: AOK for iPhone and the Droid app here: AOK for Droid.The AOK team couldn’t be more stoked. Upload your AOKs and earn Virtue Points that go to real-world causes. AOK has issued a 500k point challenge, with a penny for every point the community earns. Check the point ticker here: AOK.

Act Locally, Impact Globally!

Posted in Uncategorized

From AOK team member Lynn, an attempted AOK (Editorial Note: Inspired by this act of leaving extra time in the meter for the next person, I added an hour to my meter on San Vicente before I drove off. AOK relay?)I pull up to the parking meter, and with kindness overflowing, I don’t just take a nickel out to put in the meter while I run for coffee, I take a WHOLE QUARTER!!! I snap a picture, to document my overwhelmingly kind act, and lo and behold, the damn meter is BROKEN. Mission NOT accomplished, this was an AOK No-Go.

Posted in Uncategorized

From our AOK team member, Lynn:Parking at Target on the weekend usually sucks, you’re on guard for all sorts of rotten driving behavior. Today, I was more than pleasantly surprised when a young woman and her son went towards their car, and it was the son who made eye contact and a gesture to alert me that this parking spot was soon going to be for me. What really struck is the age of the boy, maybe 7 or 8, and how proud he was to provide me this gift and exchange this silent pleasantry…well beyond his years….it was as if he’d been watching his mom for years do the same, and seeing how happy it made people, thought he’d give it try. I smiled and waved big time, and I could tell he thought it was cool to bond, if only for a moment, with a perfect stranger, on this nice gesture. AOK Observed!A few moments later, the boy gets out of his car and walks towards mine. For the life of me I can’t think of any reason this would need to occur…and I CONFESS that I was a little apprehensive…what could this boy want from me…was there any reason I should go back to my previous on guard position? Geez I hoped not…we’d just had such a perfect AOK moment! I rolled down my window…and the sweet little guy just wanted to tell me that ‘his mom was going to take a little while longer…she had to do something in the car’….WHAT…getting out of your car to tell me this…your AMAZING kid (I thought in my head)! He just didn’t want me to have to wait…he smiled..happy to impart this bit of important information…and boy did I smile back. The only thing I wish I could have taken back was my minor moment of apprehension…completely washed away as this kid melted my heart and made my day!

Posted in Uncategorized

I made a late-night Walgreens run earlier this week. I found myself in line behind a pair of young Korean guys, probably in their mid-twenties. My K-town neighborhood hosts a diverse array of people, Korean, Mexican, white, old, and young, and the Walgreens at 6th and Vermont caters to them all. The cashier at the register, a middle-aged Latino man, was the only person manning the front of the store, apart from a bored-looking security guard.This cashier was doing his best to stay on top of the growing line, zipping people through their checkouts as quickly as possible. While I found his efficiency alone worth appreciating (as the wee hours were upon us), he did not sacrifice sharing a warm greeting with each person he dealt with. When it came time for the empty-handed Korean guys to check out, they requested international phone cards and indicated they weren’t sure which to purchase, much less how to use them correctly. Despite a language barrier, in broken english and with a fair amount of body-language the Korean pair and the spanish-speaking cashier negotiated the ins and outs of the available cards to find a good option. The two young guys went happily on their way as I did shortly thereafter, one AOK observation richer. Kudos to all three, customers and cashier.

Posted in Uncategorized

Hey guys, I’m here at Jiffy Lube and a guy was paying for the oil change with cash but they didn’t have sufficient change. A woman who was waiting alongside me said ‘I have change’ and she proceeds to get up and make change.The customer receiving change and the woman had a nice little banter and a smile about how she went to the casino last night ‘justifying’ why she had the various denominations.It was a subtle exchange, but I chuckled as she made her comment and it injected some levity into the otherwise boring experience of waiting for my car to be serviced.

Posted in Uncategorized

Welcome to AOK Social Heroes! Here you will find glimpses of people just like you building a more mindful world, one small AOK (act of kindness) at a time. These people – you, me, us, them – are the everyday Social Heroes that we celebrate here. The people that give the other guy the benefit of the doubt, mind our manners, and feel good going that tiny bit out of our way to make someone’s day a little easier.Through sharing acts of kindness performed, observed, or the confession of those times we weren’t quite as kind as we aspire to be, the small AOK’s that happen all around us every day begin to come to the forefront of our thoughts. This awareness encourages action, inspiring us to extend our kindness a little further than we normally would, into the realm of the everyday hero. Before you know it, it’s a little bit nicer out there in the big world.So, read, share, and do. Remember, you don’t have to become a Social Hero… you already are one. Hone your skills here with us, and there’s no limit to the good you can do!

Posted in Uncategorized