Heartbreak and $100 in tips were the beginning of it all when Kristina Ulmer’s sister attempted to return home in 2014 with the money she had collected from her breakfast tables but was killed in a vehicle accident.
Like her sister always did, Kristina made the decision to utilize the $100 from her sister’s tips to create an appropriate monument that would make the world a better place because Katie was always worried about those who were less fortunate.
Kristina, a ninth-grade English teacher in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area, stated, “I knew I had to do something worthwhile with it.”
“I had this really amazing group of students in front of me, and we were reading a dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451,” Kristin stated. “And in the novel, everyone’s obsessed with their screens. They walk around with earbuds in all day long (and) they lack empathy toward each other.”
Several years after her sister’s passing, she had an epiphany on that day. Everyone required a reminder of the necessity of supporting one another along the journey and the significance of being interconnected.
After taking the $100 she had been saving from her sister’s handbag and adding a bit extra, the teacher from the Hatboro-Horsham District gave her kids a mission: do something good and create a video about it.
Since then, her “Kindness Challenge” has raised over $7,000 in donations, which is sufficient to keep it going for six years in a row. Additionally, it has produced over 350 distinct acts of compassion.
A modest Christmas tree for an old couple who are confined. homeless people’s hygiene bags. A Lego set purchased at Walmart for an unidentified young child. Holiday cards for Veterans Home residents. Teachers’ cupcakes, fresh. A crate of toys for the local shelter’s dogs and kittens.
Hats for preterm babies were sewn by one student. Despite having long since left Kristina’s class, someone has taken part in the Kindness Challenge five times.
“The first time I participated in the challenge, I didn’t think it would be possible to make a difference with $20, but I learned that’s really not true,” according to a student named Sydney. “You don’t have to have millions – anyone can make a difference.”
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As Kristina compiles the films into a montage that tells her sister’s tale and the enchantment her pupils made with their $20 bucks, she is moved to tears every year by fresh acts of compassion.
“Everything that comes out of those kids’ mouths as they are sharing what they did and what they learned is my sister speaking,” Kristina stated in a video. “She’s been gone 10 years now, but her spirit has lived on through all the things people are doing in her honor.”
“They now understand the impact that something like a small act of kindness could do.”
The tradition that began with $100 in tips is one that will not soon come to an end.
