Many teaching staff at Deerwood School are lately involved in a fun fitness challenge. Divided into two teams, each teacher’s individual goal is to increase the number of daily steps and record their steps on a fitness tracker. This daily objective can be achieved in many ways – through physical exercise or by simply walking, depending on what works best for each individual team member. The fitness tracker then adds up each team’s steps and declares the winning team in the coming weeks. Feeling somewhat out of shape after the winter holidays, I gladly signed up, though I soon realized that the pedometers I had were no longer working. So, I went shopping and bought myself a Fitbit.
Those who know me are well aware that I am by no means a techie. In fact, I give my school principal plenty of credit for helping me get my Fitbit to work, for I have often self-deprecatingly joked about how I am still operating in “analogue” and frequently off the grid. I am enjoying my new Fitbit very much these days and, I have to admit, it is fun to see all those colourful charts and numbers on my app while earning my cutesy badges when I reach a certain number of steps. In all, I can honestly say that it has been motivating for me to become more physically active.
The Thompson Kin Club also works very much like a Fitbit, albeit a kindness Fitbit. Sure, in the grand plan of our lives, we are all capable of doing many acts of kindness on our own. In fact, we do many acts of kindness every day and do not even stop twice to think about it. Yet, sometimes, when we are inspired to do something a little larger or when we need a little motivation to set that larger act of kindness in motion with the help of some friends, we need a Kindness Fitbit. Indeed, we may need KinFit.
The Kin Club of Thompson will be joining hundreds of Kinsmen, Kinnette and Kin Clubs of Canada throughout the month of February to complete service projects of kindness in our communities in honour our founder, Hal Rogers. On the Kin Day of Kindness, Saturday, Feb. 23, our Thompson Kin Club will be serving free hotdogs at Winterfest, so we hope that you will take a moment to drop by for a hotdog. In itself, this is not a large act of kindness that our club will be doing, for as many Thompsonites know, we have completed larger projects in the past. It, however, adds to the many smaller and larger kind acts of service that, when put together, provides us with the synergy to fulfill our Kin motto: “To serve the community’s greatest need.”
I am proud to count myself as a member of our local Kin Club. Together, as a group of Thompsonites comprised of different genders, races, socio-economic backgrounds, religious beliefs and professions, we have completed many volunteer service projects over the years. We have, for instance, provided hygiene kits for women at the Thompson Crisis Centre, we have provided funds for students graduating from high school through the awarding of our Kin bursaries, we have annually enriched the community’s good cheer at our city’s Winterfest winter carnival by hosting our unique events, we have provided a wide range of support services for partner community organizations so that their events can succeed, and we have fundraised thousands of dollars for cystic fibrosis over the years through our annual Kin Koins for CF event each spring, earning Kin Canada’s Bill Skelly Award in 2014 for outstanding achievement in raising funds and awareness of cystic fibrosis. On a personal note, I can especially vouch for the Thompson Kin Club’s commitment to volunteer service for it was our club that fundraised the funds to purchase a physiotherapy vest for my wife Shannon to use when she was in need of daily physiotherapy due to her having cystic fibrosis. So, much like in the spirit of Hal Rogers and Canada’s Kinsmen and Kinettes, who in the early days initiated the Milk for Britain program for children during the Second World War or, in later times, have assisted the Red Cross in their domestic and international disaster relief efforts through Kin’s substantial financial contributions, our Kin Club continues to move forward with acts of kind service, much like that Fitbit that moves with me wherever I go.
It is my personal invitation and sincere hope that you will join us for a free hotdog and a coffee at the Thompson Regional Community Centre on the early afternoon of Feb. 23. Rudy the Raven, our dearly loved Thompson Kin Club mascot, will also be there to greet you and is available for pictures! We would love to hear your ideas as you “sync” your “kindness Fitbit” synergies with ours because, once you get motivated to start doing volunteer projects of kind service with a fun and dynamic group of friends such as your local Kin Club, you simply have to keeping moving with your new, perfect fit, KinFit!
If you would like more information about your Thompson Kin Club, please visit us on Facebook at thompsonkinclub or send us an email at thompsonkinclub@gmail.com.
Peter Frigo is the vice-president of the Kin Club of Thompson.
