Thousands of Dignity Health Employees and Physicians Set To Participate in Kindness Challenge This Week

Dignity Health is "Matching" Kind Acts of School Kids for The Great Kindness Challenge

SAN FRANCISCO - Jan. 26, 2015 - Dignity Health, one of the largest health systems in the nation, is joining the kindness movement that is sweeping across the nation, as the presenting sponsor and active participant of the Great Kindness Challenge, which starts today and runs through Friday, Jan. 30.

The Great Kindness Challenge, created by non-profit Kids for Peace, is a bullying prevention initiative dedicated to creating a culture of kindness in elementary, middle, and high schools nationwide. The event challenges participating students to complete 50 acts of kindness in one week. The Great Kindness Challenge has more than two million students enrolled for 2015, which will amount to at least 100 million acts of kindness in schools nationwide.

In addition to serving as a presenting sponsor of the Great Kindness Challenge, many of Dignity Health's more than 65,000 executives, employees, and physicians are taking the Great Kindness Challenge alongside the students this week, effectively "matching" their good deeds in hospital, clinic, and office settings.

"Kindness is the foundation of our healing ministry, and we are proud to support the Great Kindness Challenge for the second year," said president/CEO of Dignity Health, Lloyd H. Dean. "The Great Kindness Challenge is one of the most powerful forces in creating a culture of kindness, beginning with our nation's young people. When one act is completed, it creates a ripple of kindness that effectively has no end."

To learn more about what kindness means to kids, Dean recently spoke with dozens of students from San Francisco's Mission Dolores Academy, one of the schools taking part in the Great Kindness Challenge. The students responses and insights into kindness were shared with Dignity Health employees to inspire them and their in-hospital participation in this week's Great Kindness Challenge, and culminated in a video: Kids Say the Kindest Things, which is available for viewing at http://youtu.be/YZYzZp54nhI. To follow Dignity Health's acts of kindness, please visit facebook.com/dignityhealth.

To learn more or participate in the Great Kindness Challenge, please visit dignityhealth.org/GKC.

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