This past February, our team explored how acts of kindness can support wellbeing. Our month-long initiative, Winter Whimsy, gave VA staff the chance to show kindness and create moments of joy, connection, and care.
By Erin Navarro and Francine Wong Zentner
Making Space for Care
January can be a tough month. Shorter days, colder weather, and recovering from the excitement of the holidays can leave some of us feeling a bit worn down. Taking a moment to check in with one another can help us feel more grounded and connected as we ease into a new year.
Volunteer Alberta’s Wellbeing Committee exists to ensure we live our organizational value of care, both in how we support each other as a team and in our work with communities across the province. This can look like creating opportunities for connection at staff retreats, updating policies to support wellbeing, or simply starting meetings with a fun check-in question. Practices like these reflect our belief that caring for the people doing the work matters. Creating a culture where people feel supported and valued helps strengthen both our team and the communities we serve.
Kindness and Wellbeing at Work
Research shows that kindness can play an important role in workplace wellbeing. A study by kindness.org found a connection between acts of kindness at work and higher levels of employee happiness, while another study found that doing something kind for someone else can improve the wellbeing of the person offering the gesture. Even small actions, like buying a colleague a coffee, may help increase morale and teamwork.
Kindness reminds people that they are valued, and this can contribute to a stronger sense of belonging and improve engagement, satisfaction, and collaboration. Research suggests that feeling supported and cared for can make it easier to show up fully, share ideas with their teammates, and contribute in ways that feel meaningful.
Winter Whimsy: Bringing Kindness into February
To create intentional time for wellbeing and kindness, and to coincide with Canada’s “Kindness Week,” the Wellbeing Committee introduced VA’s first “Winter Whimsy” event. Throughout February, staff participated in weekly themed activities meant to bring a little joy and lightheartedness to the darkest and coldest days of the year. Each week, our team took part in simple activities that spread kindness. Activities were designed to be easy to join and flexible, so staff across locations could participate in ways that worked for them.
Erin’s Reflections on a Month of Kindness
Here’s Erin, VA’s Senior Coordinator of Learning and Resources, on how a month of kindness went:
We kicked off Week 1 with ‘bad joke week,’ sharing bad jokes with each other during our morning check-ins (turns out groans count as positive feedback!).
During Week 2, we checked in each day by sharing a picture from our camera roll that made us happy. Many pets were highlighted as smile-sources.
Week 3, inspired by Random Acts of Kindness Day, became “Kindness Week.” Everyone who participated (which ended up being the whole team!) was randomly partnered with another team member. We each received a list of ideas from our partners about what they enjoy and would find encouraging (e.g., snail mail, coffee chats, funny videos, favourite colours, or snacks).
Each person spent the week finding ways to share some intentional happiness with our partners. Even though the activity lasted one week, we’re encouraging random acts of kindness to continue beyond it. Since we are a remote-first organization, intentionality is key to staying connected to one another (even when we are hundreds of kilometres apart).
I was enthralled when I opened my door to a delivery of movie theatre popcorn with my favourite dill pickle seasoning from my partner, Cindy (thank you for enabling my pickle obsession!).
Another highlight was mailing my kindness partner, Michael, my favourite oolong tea and bonding over its cozy flavour through the magic of a Teams meeting.
Our final kindness task was to create a collage of pictures featuring our kindness partner’s favourite colour(s) and share it at our staff meeting. We each shared details about the collage we worked on, and we all got to enjoy something specifically curated for us by our teammates.
Kindness Builds Community and Belonging
Winter Whimsy isn’t a cure for everything, but moments of kindness and lightness can make a real difference during the winter months. Adding a sprinkle of whimsy each day helped us welcome back the daylight, together. It also reminded us that these small gestures are always within reach when we want to reconnect with one another and bring a little more warmth to heavier days.
Acts of kindness in our workplaces, volunteer programs, or communities can help lift people up and reinforce the connections between us. A small gesture can brighten someone’s day and help build the kind of community we all want to be part of.
References
Chancellor, J., Margolis, S., Jacobs Bao, K., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2018). The propagation of everyday prosociality in the workplace. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103117303451
Curry, O. S. (2025). Kindness and happiness at work. Psychology Today.
Fowler, J. H., & Christakis, N. A. (2008). Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: Longitudinal analysis over 20 years. Science, 337(5892), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1150952
Kindness.org. (n.d.). Kindness.org. https://kindness.org
Robinson, B. (2023, July 2). Acts of kindness have become a workplace standard, according to groundbreaking research. Forbes.