SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Every four years February gains an extra day, and with that extra day Saratoga County commits to spreading kindness.
For the third leap year in a row, Leap of Kindness Day prompts people locally and around the world to do something nice for their favorite nonprofits and community.
Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce President Todd Shimkus shared that while Leap of Kindness Day started in 2016 the idea had been something he had come up with long before that.
“I think the first time I had the thought about what to do with an extra day was in 2000,” Shimkus shared. “I thought, ‘jeez, there’s got to be some way we could use an extra day to benefit the community,’ and then I did nothing with it for 15 years. In 2015, when I was here (at the Saratoga County Chamber), I brought it up with a couple of people and they were like, you know, that’s kind of interesting.”
Shimkus and this group of people from many different sectors, including big businesses, not-for-profits, etc., met and after some brainstorming and coming up with a proper name Leap of Kindness Day was born. Ways to make it a truly impactful event and one that any sized business could participate in was brainstormed and now three Leap Years later it has expanded to be larger than anyone would have ever guessed, all stemming out of Saratoga County.
“I’ve been at three chambers. I thought of this when I was at the first one, but I never brought it up there. I thought about it at the second one, never brought it up there — why did I bring it up in Saratoga?” Shimkus proposed. “Saratoga has a history of gambling. So people understand that you don’t win every bet, but you can try and you ought to try, right? Gotta take a gamble, ought to take a risk here and there, and so I just felt right.
“If I was ever going to do something with this extra day initiative, I should do it here and the community embraced it, and really made it happen. The nonprofits responded, right away. The employers said yes right away, and that tells you this is a special kind of community.”
Many local businesses and organizations in the Saratoga County area have truly embraced the event and committed to taking part in spreading kindness in their communities.
Some of these include First New York Federal Credit Union who is volunteering at local food pantries through the Food Pantries of the Capital Region, Joseph Henry Elementary School who will host a collection for the items in need at Homes for Orphaned Pets Exist (H.O.P.E.), Ball Corporation who is donating soccer, basketball, and dodge balls to the Ballston Area Community Center, The Holiday Inn — Saratoga Springs staff members that are cleaning the Code Blue Shelter and Edgewood House for RISE along with donating paper goods and personal care products and the Bluebird Spa City Motor Lodge who will drop off lunch to the Saratoga Springs Fire Department’s Lake Avenue Station.
A list of those committed to participating can be found at https://www.saratoga.org/leapofkindnessday/.
One business that Shimkus highlighted was Curtis Lumber, which will deliver donated 2x4s — available for purchase throughout the month at select Curtis Lumber locations to Habitat For Humanity of Northern Saratoga, Warren and Washington Counties to help build a home. In 2020 Shumkus shared that Habitat For Humanity had a request for 2×4, and he pondered how he could fulfill that until the connection with Curtis Lumber was made, who absolutely took it in stride.
At most of the Curtis Lumber locations there were posters and people had the opportunity to buy 2×4 to donate for $3 which would be then donated to Habitat For Humanity.
“They agreed to match all the donations, and low and beyond a couple thousand 2×4 were donated, collected and used to build a home here in Saratoga Springs which was turned over to a single mom and her young son in August 2020,” Shimkus shared. “One of the reasons that stood out is that Curtis Lumber has done that every February since, even when there isn’t a leap year.”
That connection between finding non for profits and businesses that want to support them is an import part of what the chamber does to prepare for Leap Of Kindness Day. Shimkus noted that The Chamber doesn’t underestimate the time it takes to curate partnerships and foster connections so that those in the Saratoga County Impact Sector can get their request fulfilled.
“It’s important because if we just publish the list, these connections don’t just happen,” said Shimkus. “We spend a lot of time and try to promote all the needs, the requests, as well as all the great things that the companies are doing. This is not an easy undertaking and there’s a ton of work involved.”
While Leap of Kindness Day may have started in Saratoga County, it hasn’t stayed there. This initiative of using an extra day to spread good has spread to other places in the United States including Bowling Green, Kentucky and Jasper County, Illinois, as well as globally including Canada, Portugal, Ireland, Senegal and more.
“It is humbling,” Shimkus said regarding the widespread use of the event. “When I sat on my laptop in 2020 when it really took off and looked at all these posts, looked at where they are and looked at all these different things that people did all over the world because of a very simple idea, it’s humbling.”
In 2020 more than 200 chambers in the US, Canada, and Ireland took part and organized ways for their communities to give back and spread kindness with their leap day. This year nearly 250 communities have set up their own Leap of Kindness Day initiatives and plan to participate this Thursday in 43 of the 50 U.S. states and abroad in places like Ziguinchor, Senegal and Den Haag, Netherlands.
“One thing I’ve learned is that local people and people around the world are incredibly generous during the holidays, and then we go back to our normal lives and try to survive the winter,” Shimkus said. “We forget that there’s still needs, and there’s not a lot of push for drives, there’s not a ton of events for nonprofit because people don’t want to come out necessarily, but they need to help.
“So every four years, at least, we provide an extra boost, and I don’t know that I ever would have thought of it that way.”
To learn more about Leap of Kindness Day and the requests from the Saratoga County Impact Sector, visit https://www.saratoga.org/leapofkindnessday/ .
