Kind Hearts and the simple business of being kind.

On Monday 22nd June 2026 we were treated to a warm and very funny talk from Raewyn Marshall, who came along with her good friend Robin, the board chairperson of Kind Hearts. The two of them have been friends for the best part of fifty years, and that easy partnership came through in everything they shared. Raewyn has spent ten years working in schools for Kind Hearts, and her message was a beautifully simple one. Kindness is free, it bounces back, and we could all do with a bit more of it.

She did warn us, with a story, that kindness can be a little dicey. On a bus from Kelvin Grove she watched an elderly lady hand the driver handful after handful of peanuts. He was very touched, until he asked why she kept giving them away. Her answer was that she had no teeth and could not chew them, but she did love the chocolate on the outside. So with that lesson safely behind us, Raewyn told us what Kind Hearts is really about.

Kind Hearts started in 2014 when a local woman, Lee Woznoski, set out to spread random acts of kindness around town. She would leave money on windscreens for parking meters and began taking baking and other goods up to the hospital. Her vision was a kinder world, and the trust has carried that on ever since. Today it is a small Manawatu trust with around twenty five to thirty volunteers, proudly local to Palmerston North and Fielding, and running three main initiatives along with a newer one that is just taking off.

Twice a week, volunteers deliver fresh baking, toiletries and sanitary items to the neonatal ward and the parents room at the hospital. As Raewyn put it, when you rush in with a sick child you do not stop to pick anything up, and these are the small necessities that make a hard day a little easier. The baking comes from some wonderful supporters. Jacko's bakes every Tuesday, and the new owners have happily kept that going. The Good Bitches Bakers bake every week, and this year some pupils at Intermediate Normal have been baking as part of the William Pike Challenge. The trust has also refurbished the parents room with new carpet, paint and furniture, and given a little room beside the neonatal ward a freshen up so parents have somewhere quiet to escape to.

Local businesses can get involved too. Kind Hearts takes on a business partner for a month, shares some resources, and the staff get to practise a few acts of kindness and donate items for the hospital deliveries. As Raewyn said, you do not have to give money, you just have to be kind for a month and collect a few things.

Around a dozen cafes across town take part in a pay it forward scheme. You buy your own coffee and pay for another one, and a staff member passes that free coffee on to someone else later. You never know who gets it, and that is rather the point. It is enough to know you have quietly made a stranger's day. The cafes are marked on a map on the Kind Hearts website, and a volunteer pops around regularly to keep in touch with them. When she recently asked whether they wanted to keep going, even with the cost of coffee climbing, every one of them said yes.

This is the part Raewyn has led for ten years, and it is clearly close to her heart. The work is about helping students have fun with kindness, encouraging them to be kind to others and to themselves, and showing them that kindness usually comes back around. As a nation, she said, we are not always good at giving or receiving. Someone compliments our jacket and we tend to brush it off rather than simply saying thank you. Kind Hearts wants children to learn that kindness should be simple, made up of smiles, small gestures, good old fashioned manners and a bit of respect.

Importantly, this cannot be taught as a tick box lesson. Raewyn and Robin, both former school principals, talked about helping teachers build a culture where kindness feels natural. Over the years they have refined a whole set of resources, including a preschool pack and their own picture book about kindness heroes. The book has no faces in the pictures, partly because their illustrator friend did not want to draw them, but it turned out to be perfect, because the children realise the heroes could be any of them.

A big part of the work is teaching children to be kind to themselves, to have a supportive inner voice rather than an angry one. Anger is a natural feeling, but the children are encouraged to notice it and choose something helpful instead, whether that is a short walk, a book, or five quiet minutes, rather than lashing out. The trust currently works in around thirty schools and twenty preschools, with Raewyn and two helpers visiting the schools.

Every year Kind Hearts runs a big event for children from those schools. This August, around twelve hundred children will come across two days, in groups of about three hundred at a time. As well as celebrating kindness, the days give local children the chance to hear some well known New Zealanders share their stories. Past guests have included Suzy Cato and comedian Karen O'Leary, and this year the mountaineer William Pike is coming along.

The newest project is a set of bright red kindness benches, lovingly made by the Men's Shed and placed in schools as a spot to sit, chat and share with a friend. Each one carries a kindness quote on the back. The council has put a couple into local reserves, and the trust would love to see one in every school in Palmerston North. A few are already in place, with more on the way.

Raewyn was clear that helping does not have to mean money. You can pay it forward at a cafe, collect items for the hospital deliveries, or sponsor resources or a bench into a school you care about. Donations towards running costs are always welcome too, as the trust now has a small office in Rangitikei Street and a part time office person, which means a fair bit needs to be raised before anything else happens. Most of all, she left us with a simple challenge. Make someone's day every day with one small random act of kindness, and watch it work wonders for everyone.

Our thanks to Raewyn and Robin for a talk that was funny, heartfelt and genuinely uplifting. They reminded us that kindness costs nothing, feels wonderful, and has a habit of coming back around.