I attended the launch event for @40Acts earlier this year, and ended up quoted in Stewardship Magazine:
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Do Lent Generously with @40Acts
Tag: @40Acts
Stewardship’s Lent challenge, 40acts, which launched on Ash Wednesday, has led to a wave of over 2.9million acts of generosity over 40 days.
The challenge, which comes to an end this Saturday, asks people to do one simple generous act each day over Lent.
This year it had 75,000 people taking part, making this year’s challenge the biggest in its five year history.
Over the last 40 days participants have cleaned graffiti off local buildings, left free chocolates in gym lockers, wrote letters of encouragement to those in prison, surprised strangers with flowers or bought coffee for them in cafes, and invited the neighbours around for ‘pudding parties’ in an attempt to ‘give out’ rather than just give something up for Lent.
One of the most popular challenges of this year’s 40acts was #chocolatetuesday, where thousands of people slipped chocolate bars into people’s handbags, gave out free chocolates on trains and buses, or bought in sweet treats for their class at school.
The challenge encourages people to make living generously a daily habit and gives participants the opportunity to be generous not just with their money, but also with their time, their words, their skills and their hugs!
40acts concluded on Holy Saturday, where those taking part were challenged to do one last anonymous blow-out act of generosity that stretched them beyond their comfort zones.
The award-winning 40acts challenge run by charity Stewardship provided tailored materials to ensure schools, churches, groups, students, families and individuals could take part.
Ruth Bartholomew, who took part in 40acts this year with her husband and three daughters said: “We chose to do 40acts as a family so that we would have activities that we could do together and to show kindness within our family and also to our community members.
“It has had a positive impact on us all. Through all the acts we have taken part and in particular by delivering flowers, cakes, and treats to our neighbours, we have positively influenced our community and opened doors to more meaningful relationships with those we share life with.”
40acts also has a huge following on social media where those taking part share their actions for each day and encourage each other. This year the 40acts Facebook group more than doubled in size from 12,000 to 25,000 and its Instagram community tripled from 900 to 2,700 sharing their photos online. 2000 new Twitter followers joined the conversation, creating a community that supported and encouraged each other.
Alexandra Khan, part of the 40acts team at Stewardship, said: “It’s been a phenomenal year. The 40acts community is an incredible mix of people from all over the world. We’ve loved hearing their stories, seeing new friendships forged, and watching a ripple of generosity happen throughout Lent. For the last 40 days, the motto was ‘do Lent generously’. But now? Now it’s time to ‘do Life generously’.”
You can view Stewardship’s video to conclude the challenge here:
Taken from a Press Release
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Lent is Coming
So, it’s time for Lent. For once, I haven’t been on top of exactly when it’s coming, as after four years of doing #bigread, we’ve taken a break this year (it’s a huge amount of work, you know) – materials remain available online. Anyway, Lent starts Wednesday, with Easter Day 5th April (I’ll be at Spring Harvest, come join!)
So, what will I be engaging with for Lent?
I’m already engaged in a discussion group on Facebook, reading We Make the Road by Walking, which will last all year.
As I have done for the last few Lent/Advent sessions, I am going to receive Brian Draper‘s daily ‘in the moment’ emails, which always give something to chew over for the day.
I always like to keep an eye on what Street Angels are doing with ‘Love Your Streets‘.
A few years ago, I gave up supermarket shopping for Lent. I think this year, I will again do a food-focused challenge, in which I will focus on the foods in my cupboards, and seek to make meals from those, preferably topping up from small ‘fill-in’ shops, rather than a ‘big shop’ (in either sense of the word), and remove some of that consumerist mindset!
Finally, I love what @40Acts does, and look forward to engaging with the ‘gentle’ acts suggested within the ‘green’ section of 5 minutes or less (as this year acts will be split into 3 levels, according to the energy that you have that day):
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For Lent, join @40Acts?
Last week, I went to a party celebrating that this year will be the 5th year of @40Acts, which has grown from a handful of people to, last year, 45,000 people joining in – with hopes of even more this year. A simple act of generosity every day – check out @40Acts.
Read the blog post, and the blog post from the original decluttering day!
<edit – as 40 Acts don’t retain old content> here’s the content I submitted:
Clear Out Your Wardrobe
In Narnia (re-read in preparation for #BigRead13) what’s inside the wardrobe is “bigger inside than it looks outside” – we but live in the ‘Shadowlands’, and on death, if we believe, will be taken “further up and further in” to a world of glorious colour. Something to look forward to any day of the week!
Back in the material world, have you managed to squeeze everything into your wardrobe? I used to. Drawing on William Morris’ “Have nothing in your house that you do not believe to be useful or beautiful” thirteen years ago I started de-cluttering my possessions. Last year I finally got around to tackling my wardrobe. I was fortunate that my cousin (@findmystyle) does this for a living, so I asked her to help me with what’s actually quite an emotional process.
With body image a growing field of interest for many, we talked through a collection of words and images in order to identify a look that’s right, comfortable and uniquely appropriate to me. We then turned to the wardrobe, which was to be returned solely to its original function: removing all non-clothing items.
There were a number of decisions to be made about the clothing itself. If it fits, I like it, and it’s ready to wear, it’s hung in the wardrobe grouped by function, with the sizes removed from the hangers. Jewellery and shoes were untangled, polished and left ready to wear. A posterity bag was allowed for clothing that was ‘loved’ but wasn’t wearable, but only the best could be kept from my huge pile of t-shirts.
With each choice I had to face guilt over things that had been expensive, or were gifts from others, but if it’s uncomfortable, doesn’t feel good, or doesn’t ‘work’ with the rest of your wardrobe, pass it onto the clothes bank, charity shop or Freecycle allow someone else to enjoy it.
Months later, I’ve a clearer head, get ready more quickly in the morning, spend less on clothes, and find it easier to pass more items on for the enjoyment of others.