Outdoor rinks - Kindness Week

February 16, 2009 by Barbara.

It’s Kindness Week in Ottawa. I’m not sure why exactly; we’re not nastier as a city than others. The website that supports the initiative talks about their vision ”To strengthen a culture of compassion, thoughtfulness and kindness and thereby prevail over tendency toward cynicism.” The heart of Kindness Week is definitely in the right place and, come February in our cold city, we may need the reminder to be kind and to recognize the kindness of others. I’m going to not just be kind - because I try to always be kind - but also recognize the kindness of others.

We have more than 230 outdoor rinks in Ottawa and they seem to depend on the services of volunteers. We have a “puddle” (ice with snowbanks around it) on the parking lot of the soccer field near our house. I only discovered it when we were snowshoeing with Uncle Roger. And then I saw a number of folks out shovelling the snow off after the last snow we had. I don’t know who they were, whether they’d been formally organized to clear the snow or if they just saw that it needed to be done. I think that they were kind, though, and if you know them or are them (in one form or another), Reid and I would like to say, “thanks!” We were skating today and had fun.

If you have “Caught someone being kind“, you can enter the details or read other people’s stories by clicking on a map.

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