Nothing is worse than having a terrible day and then having to deal with things such as studying, working or just doing mundane tasks, like laundry.In these situations, a little kindness goes a long way.  

There are people all around UK’s campus that do kind things, like opening doors, but what most people don’t know is that some of them are a select group who have made it their mission to brighten peoples’ day. These people are members of the Random Acts of Kindness club at the University of Kentucky. 

The club was started by ZhiZhi (Wit) Wang and a group of eight friends in September of 2015. 

“I came up with this idea because I had seen that people have done nice things for others, and I then I thought about it and told my friends about starting a club so we can recognize what people do and compliment them on it, so people will be encouraged to do more,” Wang said.  

It may seem odd to many about an organization that opens doors for people and send out compliment cards, but this kindness movement has been active nationally for a while. The non-profit organization respectively called the Random Acts of Kindness Organization, is designed to get people to be more kind and sharing what being kind does to others, becoming RAKtivists for the community. 

Knowing the national organization would help them, Wang and the club decided to register to become an official branch of the organization. What started as eight people became more than 80 students in seven months, with 40 active members. Many staff members volunteered to be faculty advisors for Wang and the club but eventually they decided on Judith Prats, the director of the Writing Center at William T. Young Library. 

While the RAK club has been very successful, they have struggled financially. Although getting $750 from the Student Government Association, since the organization is non-profit, the local chapter gives money raised from fundraisors back to the home office. 

However, because of the chapters involvement, more non-profit organizations are reaching out to UK’s RAK club to work with them, which can help the club and the non-profit organizations. 

UK’s RAK club meets every other Wednesday at the writing center at the William T. Young Library. Students interested in joining can sign up through orgsync with the club and then once more on the non-profit’s website and attend the meetings to become a full-fledged member.

“What inspired me to do this was when you make someone smile you feel better about yourself, there are so many things we can do that are not valued by money, that we can brighten people’s day by doing random acts of kindness,” Wang said, this statement resonates with the motto of the club, just a little kindness can go a long way.

Editors Note- Judith Prats name was misspelled in the original story.