The Best Day Ever!

​Highmark Credit Union in Rapid City, South Dakota helps turn small acts of kindness into a nationwide movement. 

It started out as just a glimmer of an idea brought to Highmark Credit Union (Rapid City, SD) by their rewards checking vendor, Kasasa. The idea was to take small acts of kindness and turn them into a ripple that would travel across communities.
 
That glimmer of an idea was embraced by over 100 community banks and credit unions nationwide, including Highmark Credit Union, and turned into a full-blown movement. The ripple turned into a kindness tsunami that touched millions of lives on one day – November 3rd.
 
As the sole participant in the Dakotas, Highmark Credit Union took this challenge to heart, how to make a difference in their own communities. Having started as a teachers’ credit union over 83 years ago, they decided to honor those very community members: teachers and staff at both Central and Stevens High Schools. 

At 7:15 a.m. on Friday, November 3rd, twenty Highmark staff members dressed in bright red Highmark logoed superhero capes, headed out to the two schools, and waited for teachers and staff to arrive. The unsuspecting teachers were greeted with smiles, handshakes, hugs, many thanks, and a small red card that told them they mattered. In addition, each card contained cash! Highmark engaged with over 300 teachers and staff within an hour, and handed out over $2,000.
 
The response? Smiles, bewilderment, shock, laughter, awe, and appreciation. The energy was high, the emotions raw, and people connected in a very positive way that morning. Highmark superhero volunteers returned to work understanding that the joy is in the giving, and asking one another when they can do this again.

The nationwide goal of inspiring (and tracking) 100,000 acts of kindness was not only achieved, it was blown away! People across the country were pouring out kindness and clicking the kindness tracker at kasasalove.com. The acts even continued through the weekend, with the total number surpassing 310,000 acts of kindness.