1,000 Good Deeds

For Girl Scout Gold Award, Notre Dame parishioner is collecting acts of kindness to make world a better place

Grace Campbell

CONVENT STATION  Grace Campbell, a junior at Whippany Park High School here, believes just a single good deed can change the world. So much so, she is collecting an anthology of good deeds or acts of kindness in hopes people are inspired to make the world a better place.

This collection of good deeds is Campbell’s Girl Scout Gold Award project. Her goal is 1,000 and so far the teen has collected more than 300 good deeds performed by people in and around her community. Partici­pants have ranged from 3 to 85 years old.

Campbell, who is in Girl Scout for Troop 1121 in Whippany, said, “Good deeds do not have to be in the category of rescuing a child from a burning building. Little acts of kindness such as picking up trash along the roadway to clean up the environment, helping someone else complete a task, donating to a food bank or participating in a charity race all qualify toward making this world a better place.”

A parishioner of Notre Dame of Mount Carmel in Cedar Knolls, the longtime Girl Scout invites readers of The Beacon to participate in her Gold Award. “I am asking people to perform good deeds and then tell me about them either by e-mail or Facebook, so that I can record them.”

Once she receives the message, Campbell asks the participant to e-mail this good deed message to three other people to create a “Pay It Forward” effect so others will be inspired to also perform acts of kindness creating a chain reaction or domino effect of good needs. Participants can be anonymous or share their name. Campbell is also accepting good deeds someone has received through the kindness of another person. Each week, Campbell then posts these various accomplishments on her project’s website and its Facebook page.

“Anyone can be a part of this project. Sometimes we think that those little things we do for others are nothing, but for someone else that could make their day,” said Campbell.

One example Campbell found especially kind was from a person, who was at a restaurant and paid for the dinner of strangers sitting at a table near them. Other acts of kindness included someone who sent flowers to someone anonymously while another person gave up a seat on the subway.

To bring a greater awareness to her project, Campbell will be speaking to religious education classes at her parish and local elementary schools to get children involved and understand the importance and the impact that being kind to others has.

Benedictine Father Jude Salus, pastor of Notre Dame of Mount Carmel, said, “Grace is an incredible teen leader. She’s a reason why I tell our parish family so often that the youth are not the future of our parish, they are our parish now. Grace has learned early on you either walk in the footsteps of others or broaden the path for others by your example of faith, love and goodness. I am so proud of her.” When thinking about kindness, Campbell said that her greatest inspiration for making the world a better place is her family. Her older sister, Rachel was also Girl Scout and received her Gold Award by organizing a 5k run for military veterans and her two younger sisters Natalie and Jacklyn are currently in the Girl Scouts working on their Silver and Bronze Awards. Her mother, Alyssa, is leader of several Girl Scout troops.

About the Girl Scouts, Campbell said, “It’s definitely a great organization. They build role models and maturity and they teach you to always be thankful. I don’t think I would have done as many community service projects without the organization.”

[To be a part of Grace Campbell’s collection of good deeds, go to www.onethousandgooddeeds.com