Five thousand acts of good by June 2015 — that is the goal Dorothy Negropontes has set for the Town of Olds.
On Sept. 8, Negropontes led a delegation to council chambers appealing for the town to participate in Anonymous Good, a virtual community started in the United States that's focused on showcasing good deeds in the world.
Users are invited to post good deeds they've done or seen on Anonymous Good's website.
Each time they do, sponsors donate 50 cents for each deed.
The money goes to four charities: Voices 4 Freedom, Feeding America, Charity Water and The Nature Conservancy.
The Anonymous Good website says there are currently participants in 142 countries. Ambassadors for the cause include Archbishop Desmond Tutu and musician Jason Mraz.
Oct. 2 to 9 will be a challenge week. During that time, citizens will be asked to do as many good deeds as they can, with the goal to reach 5,000 by next June.
Council also approved a motion to vote on a proclamation for the occasion at its next meeting on Sept. 22.
During her delegation, Negropontes said she met the founders of Anonymous Good in California over the winter, who saw Olds as a place that lived up to the organization's mission of “feeling good, doing good and changing the world.”
“As I talked to them about the town of Olds, they were very impressed with it and all of the kinds of things Olds has done over the years,” Negronpontes said, providing O-NET and the Community Learning Campus as examples of projects that caught the founders' attention.
Local schools will be participating in Anonymous Good.
Negropontes was joined by Kristen Hubschmid and Sylvia Martens, a teacher for Chinook's Edge School Division, who said it's a chance to provide students with “character education.”
“It's shifting the paradigm of thinking,” Martens said during the meeting. “Instead of anti-bullying, looking at putting the focus on compassion and empathy and caring.”
So far, Olds College, Olds Koinonia Christian School, Horizon School, Reed Ranch School, Ecole Deer Meadow School, Olds High School and Ecole Olds Elementary School are involved, Negropontes said.
After the delegation, Olds mayor Judy Dahl said she believes that participation in Anonymous Good will catch on.
“This most certainly will cause a ripple effect, I know and feel,” Dahl said. “I just have a sense this is going to ripple around the world very quickly.”
