Here’s how hunger and boredom start a movement: You jones for a pizza, jokingly ask your Facebook followers to pony up for the pie, and watch in amazement as a piping-hot Domino’s box shows up on your Los Angeles doorstep a half-hour later—courtesy of an online acquaintance from Chicago who called in the order.

When the recipient, comedian Ricky Smith, realized that total strangers are capable of sending goodwill to each other—and actually like to do it, no strings attached—he was hooked.

So he hopped a plane to Cleveland, his hometown, where a car was waiting for him. Another fan arranged to lend him the ride, which Smith would use to drive back to L.A. doing spontaneous good deeds along the way, with only a cell phone and ID in tow.

“I can't stop helping people."



Smith has traveled the country chronicling his actions—from buying a new wardrobe for a homeless man in California to organizing a blanket drive in D.C., to simply planting a kiss on a delighted 92-year-old woman’s face in Atlanta—via social media using the hashtag #RAKE, or Random Acts of Kindness Everywhere.

And it has spread—indeed, everywhere. Search the hashtag on Twitter and Instagram and you’ll find tales of folks from places as far as London putting quarters in strangers’ parking meters and passing out lunch money to neighborhood school kids waiting for the bus.

“I’ve been the happiest I’ve ever been these last few months,” Smith says. “Even when I have a bad day, I do something for someone else, and I can’t stop smiling. And if I inspire people to do it on their own, that’s really cool.”

Smith’s organic movement has grown so fast that he launched a nonprofit, the R.A.K.E. Fund. The stage may be bigger, but the message stays the same.

“I’m not some guy walking on water. I’m not holier than thou. I can’t save the world,” he says. “But sometimes you just need a push to do something for others—and I can’t stop helping people.”

Editor’s note: Want to join in the fun—and maybe become an Every Day Hero? Do something for someone else and share it on social media with the hashtags #RAKE and #everydayheroes

Click here to meet the rest of our Everyday Heroes.

Andrew Daniels Andrew Daniels is the How To editor for Popular Mechanics.

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