Good Deeds Day was initiated in 2007 by Shari Arison, and launched and organized by Ruach Tova, which is a function of The Ted Arison Family Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Arison Group.
“Participants take part in a variety of activities, from cooking meals for the homeless in Bondi Beach, Australia, to renovating a school building in Abuja, Nigeria.”
Good Deeds Day has grown from 7,000 participants in 2007 in Israel to some 1.5 million worldwide in 2016 in seventy-five countries around the world, volunteering and offering help to others. In Israel, participation reached an all-time high in cities, towns, communities, and more than a thousand schools all over the country.
Participants around the world take part in a wide variety of activities, from cooking and serving meals to the homeless in Bondi Beach, Australia, to helping to clean up a cemetery in Washington, D.C., from visiting the children’s ward of a hospital in Santiago, Chile, to helping to renovate a school building in Abuja, Nigeria. The programs are plentiful and productive, and a spirit of benevolence is at the center of it all. Even a smile can be a good deed.
Shari Arison, who was commended by Pope Francis in 2015, has a firm conviction that sending positive energies out—through Good Deeds Day and many other ventures—will better the world. She says: “I think there are so many good people out there.”
