Pastor's Story of Kindness Sparks Idea for '365 Club'
A small, spontaneous act of kindness by a Chicago-area pastor has inspired the creation of the 365 Club – a Facebook group whose members are each committed to performing 365 acts of kindness in 2009.
Since its founding last Friday, more than 250 people have joined the club that so far has a collective commitment to perform more than 100,000 acts of kindness in 2009.
The 365 Club was inspired by a real-life story of kindness from Pastor David Ferguson of Community Christian Church in Naperville, Ill. Ferguson had walked into a Kinko's store holding a Starbucks coffee last Friday when one of the employees joked, "Hey, where is mine?"
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Ferguson immediately asked, "What do you want … I'm buying!" He also offered to buy the two other Kinko's employees working in the store at the time the Starbucks drink of their choice.
"When I got back with their favorite drinks in hand you would have thought they won the lottery," the pastor recalled in his blog. "They were super grateful and it was just a fun and spontaneous random act of kindness."
He then posted his Kinko's-Starbuck story on Facebook and not long after his friend took the idea and set up a facebook group, 365 Club.
One of the first members of the 365 Club, Michelle Thomas, posted on Saturday her act of kindness in the Facebook group.
Thomas said she waited until 2:30 a.m. and brought a bucket of hot, soapy water to the parking garage of her condo building and began to search for the dirtiest car on the floor.
She found a dirty car and washed it, dried it, and left a card in an envelope on the car's windshield that read, "Make this world a better place, pay it forward on it."
The 365 Club's motto is: "Small things done with great love can change the world!"
Chicago-area Community Christian Church was founded by Pastor Dave Ferguson and four friends from college. The church now has more than 600 leaders and over 5,000 in attendance during its weekend service among its nine sites throughout Chicago.
On the Web:
The 365 Club on Facebook.com
