Professor rewards kind acts with $1,000 in California community. ‘Kindness is...giving’

A college professor is going to give away $1,000 a month to people in Berkeley, California who show acts of kindness.

Alan Ross, a law, ethics and social policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, began contemplating the idea for the Chris Kindness Award before COVID-19 emerged in the U.S., but put it on the back burner while the country paused to deal with the deadly virus.

“For my students the adjustment back was not smooth by any means,” Ross told McClatchy News. “We went through quite a shock and now let’s find some good things so we can get out of the COVIDmindset.”

The award is named after Chris Walton, a teacher who taught Ross’s two children at the Jewish Community Center of the East Bay preschool in Berkeley.

Ross said the monthly prize money will come from his own pocket.

Ross considered naming the award in honor of his parents, but then saw that a dorm on campus had been named after a beloved professor at UC Berkeley. That prompted him to name the award after the kindest person he’d ever met.

“What made Chris so special was that he spoke softly, he was gentle, with long hair and kids pulling on it while he played his guitar. He was sweet, caring and nothing phased him,” Ross said. “After a week of work when most people would want to relax on their day off, he’d go to kid’s birthday parties and perform for them.”

“He got to know your kid and what made them tick. He was just himself.”

Ross has remained friends with Chris’s widow after he died and was often in touch with his sister. He initially reached out to both women to make sure it was OK with his plan. He said they were honored.

“His chosen work was joyful, holy ground for him. He cared about how the children in his care grew. He cared that they knew someone noticed them, heard them, and thought that what they were doing or saying was important. That THEY were important,” Chris’s sister, Kate Nelson said in a message on the Chris Kindness Award website.

There are few boundaries for the acts of kindness award, other than living, working or being a student in Berkeley, which sits just north of Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco.

The award can come from an act as simple as returning a lost wallet or helping look for a lost dog.

The goal of the project is to impact the community in a positive, light way.

“Our goal is to have some impact. We now realize even more than we did when we started that there’s an impact on people from just reading about kindness. We can all benefit from this.... It’s in our nature to not notice or to keep it moving and not appreciate the importance of kindness,” Ross said.

The organization launched on Sunday, Oct. 9 and has yet to give out their first award, but Ross said “the response has been greater than we ever could’ve imagined.”

Ross said he’s been reached out to by many to congratulate him.

“Someone I dated 30 years ago saw me on TV. A woman from Rhode Island reached out telling me how great my project was,” Ross said.

The first Chris Kindness Award will be given out in early December so it doesn’t get overlooked by the holiday season.

“Kindness is the giving, that’s what separates certain people. The idea of truly giving for the beauty of that and not for the return. In my mind I have the image of Chris as my standard,” Ross said.

How it works

• Nominations can be made at the Chris Kindness Award website.
• People should nominate anyone they feel deserves the award. “Big or small, all acts of kindness deserve to be appreciated.”
• Nominations will be gathered at the end of each month and the community will be asked “to vote for their favorite acts of kindness..”
• After a winner is selected they will be awarded the $1,000 and a feature story about their act of kindness will be posted on the website. “Winners may, of course, opt to pay it forward by giving all or a portion of their award to their favorite charitable cause.”

This story was originally published October 14, 2022 at 1:07 PM.