1 night, 1 mission, 1 city impacted. You may consider this relates to the recent events in Paris. It’s actually a call for action in the city of Auckland. Saturday March 12, 2016 from 6.30pm Auckland will be #lovebombed. Quite the opposite to what happened in Paris. Strangers will approach people and offer a gift, pay for their coffee, provide a blanket or give a hug. The homeless, police officers, bus drivers, store owners, anyone could be love bombed. Imagine your response to a stranger giving you a small gift, followed by another stranger offering a further gift, then another with a card to say you’ve been #lovebombed. The initiative is under the banner ‘Love this City’. As quoted from their web site, “the heart behind Love This City is to impact a city with love and inspire a movement of kindness and radical generosity. At the very heart of this movement is ‘love with no agenda’ for people to come together…” Pretty timely if such an event could be organised now in every city and town, including those in CQ. Now is a time to unite communities. Couple years ago this column acclaimed Mt. Morgan’s Mark Ricks Random Act of Kindness (RAOK) as a way of building stronger communities. The positivity generated by people ‘paying it forward’ embraces and infects the community with greater optimism and energy. A more inclusive community is also a safer community. We don’t want the atrocities of Paris to happen in Australia, anywhere for that matter. A demonstration of love/kindness to others in our community may just help prevent it. An organised ‘Love this City’ event would be a special thing to be a part of. To give without any expectation of reward though does not have to be an organised event. It can just be an individual’s random act of paying forward a cup of coffee, helping hand out meals to the homeless or giving a gift to a stranger. I’m not sure if Mark’s RAOK still operates in the region, if not it would be a good time to resurrect something similar. The world can do with more kindness. “Giving is the lifeblood of happy living” – Todd Parish.