Kindness: Sprout Launch started in an attempt to encourage myself to complete one random act of kindness each day. Like sharing a smile each day
Molly M. Quarrels is the founder of the Sprout Launch – it was her way of doing a random act of kindness everyday.
SproutLaunch was originally created in 2009 as an attempt to encourage and challenge Molly to complete one good deed each day. From there, it sparked the idea of including others in this mission by motivating people with inspiring stories as well as a kindness raffle to pay it forward. At that point, the idea behind SproutLaunch was born: to drive social change in communities by performing acts of kindness, creating inspirational content and sharing positivity.
From there, it sparked (or sprouted!) the idea of including others in this mission by motivating people with random rewards. At that point, the idea behind SproutLaunch was born: become the online resource for good deed inspiration while rewarding good deed-doers!
SproutLaunch offers daily good deed suggestions, tons of good deed ideas, companies making a difference in their communities, highlights non-profit missions and displays the good deeds submitted by visitors. The fun part about the site (other than reading the amazing good deeds people are doing) is that companies sponsor a week as an advertiser and are able to provide their product, gift cards, services or event tickets as the weekly reward. At the end of each week, good deed doers are randomly selected as winners and they can either keep the reward or pay it forward!
SproutLaunch suggests a good deed each day to help motivate good deed doer’s, but people can submit any good deed they want. We also post the good deed ideas to Twitter and the Facebook Fan Page as another way to reach out and get people involved. The entire goal of SproutLaunch is to encourage people to join in on completing one good deed each day!
At first, I assumed my friends and family would patronize my efforts by showing their participation, but I was amazed the first week when I started getting submissions from people located in Florida, Texas, New York and so on and so on. So from a single passion to small but quickly growing business; people are participating from all over. In only the first six months of the site launching, I had visitors from all 50 states and more than 80 countries and it keeps spreading! I firmly believe that even though SproutLaunch is dedicated to encouraging kindness and good deeds, it is also backed by a strong business model. The overall goal of the company is to share profits with non-profit organizations to continue paying it forward.
Check out SproutLaunch to see some of the inspiring good deeds submitted, I also included a couple of examples below:
“I was heading home from work on Bell Rd. and saw a homeless man crossing the street without shoes. I felt bad for him, so I made a U-turn and pulled over. I gave him the shoes right off my feet. I think he realized that because I was only wearing socks. He said thank you and as I pulled away and looked in the rear view, he was putting them on. If felt good to help someone out like that.” ~ Raymond
“My husband and I were out the other night for a nice dinner together before he was deployed. An elderly lady was diagonal from us and sitting alone. She was there the entire time alone so before my husband and I paid our check, we asked the waitress to add the ladies tab as well. The lady still has no idea who paid for her.” ~ Sarah
“I was sitting in line at McDonald’s and I noticed a man rambling through the trash cans. I bought 2 double cheeseburgers for him and told him there would be better days ahead.” ~ Chastity
“I went to the houses on my street that I knew elderly people lived in and shoveled and salted their walkways, steps and sidewalks without telling them I was doing it. I shoveled and salted 8 houses anonymously and felt really good about what I did after I was done!” ~ Lisa
Nominate a Kindness person, a Kindness Hero Award
