Airedale Hospital and Community Charity launched its Acts of Kindness (#AOKAiredale) campaign in October 2021. The campaign aimed to spread happiness and kindness among staff at the Trust and the local community.
Research shows that being kind to others can be beneficial to our own mental health. Helping others feels good, it brings us a sense of belonging and helps us to keep things in perspective. That’s why Airedale Charity created this campaign.
The initial October campaign was a huge success, with staff completing their own acts of kindness and using the #AOKAiredale resources to spread kindness throughout the Trust and wider community.
The charity team encouraged people to be kind and carried out their own acts of kindness. For example, the charity sent encouraging messages to colleagues, posted kindness quotes and tips on their social media, left surprises around the hospital and community sites for people to find, and held a tombola where staff could get a free prize to give to a friend. The team also worked with the Trust’s dedicated staff clinical psychologist to create a video and blog post about the importance of kindness and self-compassion.
The charity provided useful resources throughout the campaign, including a kindness calendar; a gratitude journal template; kindness bingo; and ‘pass it on’ cards (to be given out when an act of kindness is completed, so the recipient can pass on the act of kindness).
Since then, the charity has continued the campaign and taken it further into the community, speaking about the importance of kindness at open days, community events and primary school assemblies.
For World Book Day 2022, the charity visited five local schools to give them a surprise act of kindness which consisted of a pack of ten health-related books for the school libraries. This is becoming a yearly occurrence: for 2023, people were asked to nominate a local school and the charity selected the schools to visit at random. Keep your eyes peeled to find out which schools will receive this year’s act of kindness.
In November 2022, the charity ran its first ever AOK Wellbeing Grants programme. Members of staff were invited to apply for small grants of up to £2,000 to purchase items that would benefit their team’s wellbeing. Applicants then presented their ideas in a Dragon’s Den style event where a panel of their peers listened and decided whether to approve the application. The majority of applications were approved, so long as they fit in with the charity’s objectives and guidelines, and over 50 items were approved. The programme was very successful, and the team has a number of learnings that they can take away for next time to make the process even smoother.
The AOK Airedale campaign is now part of the charity’s core offering. The charity team has plans to continue spreading kindness and positivity within the local community and further afield.
To do this, we need your help! Can you commit to doing at least one kind act every day?
Kind acts can have a domino effect: one act of kindness leads to another. If we’re all doing an act of kindness and inspiring others to, imagine the effect it will have on our community!
The charity can provide AOK Airedale packs for schools and other community groups to use and can also attend school assemblies to inspire kindness in the younger generations.
The packs include:
© 2023 Airedale Hospital & Community Charity.
