Teaneck man's calendar offers messages of kindness

TEANECK — Daniel Rothner is aiming to spread kindness throughout the world. And he’s angling to do it one day at a time.

Rothner, a 43-year-old father of four from Teaneck, has created a "Kindness a Day" flip calendar that suggests an act of kindness for every day of 2016.

The idea of the calendar, which will be sold at bookstores and through Amazon.com for $12.95, is for people to better themselves and their communities, he said.

"It gets the value of kindness out there in people’s hands in an easy and meaningful way for them to engage in it," Rothner said. "There is something for everyone."

Among the calendar’s suggestions are to help someone carry a heavy package (Jan. 20), invite someone with no family nearby for a meal (April 20) or buy flowers for someone who needs cheering up (Aug. 24).

"These things should not be random acts of kindness," Rothner said, referencing a popular bumper sticker. "They should be clearly thought out so they are more powerful and meaningful."

Leah Silver, an eighth-grade teacher at the Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey in River Edge, plans to use it as a teaching tool.

"There’s nothing better than planning kindness and appreciating altruism to help each of us feel gratitude [for] our personal blessings," she said, adding that every morning she will read that day’s message aloud to her students. "What better way to start the day?"

Founded non-profit

This isn’t Rothner’s first foray into the realm of generating positive vibes.

Rothner was a middle school teacher in 2002, when he founded the non-profit Areyvut, Hebrew for "responsibility," with the goal of engaging local teens in social causes. "I felt that justice and passion were taught in the classroom but not implemented outside," he said.

The Bergenfield-based organization sought to engage young people in hands-on projects that would better the world, he said.

Since then, Areyvut has extended beyond New Jersey to cities in 31 states, including Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles, where Rothner travels regularly to run training events and programs for public and Jewish day school students.

The organization runs a National Mitzvah Day, which is designed to promote acts of community involvement, such as blood drives, hospital visits and food deliveries to the poor.

Areyvut’s Mitzvah Clown program, launched in 2009, has drawn more than 500 participants who have learned how to suit up, clown around and twist balloons into animal and flower shapes to elicit smiles from people in hospitals and nursing homes.

The group tries to engage children and teens in community service projects for their bar and bat mitzvahs, as well as in a teen philanthropy program that has raised more than $40,000 for charities in the United States and abroad.

Tzippy Hiller, a vocational coach from Teaneck and a mother of two, said she was impressed when Rothner sat down with her son Ari to get to know his interests and determine the best community service project for him. Rothner encouraged Ari, who was 11 at the time, to get involved in mitzvah clowning.

"It was incredible for him," Hiller recalled. "It made him feel so good when he saw how happy it made people feel."

Hiller said Rothner is an inspiration. "He goes into schools and does all kinds of things to teach kids at a young age what they can do to give back," she said. "He shows them that they can make a difference."

She said she tells her own children that "every day you can do something nice for someone; that’s one of the things that makes [Rothner] so special," adding: "He really lives by that."

Rothner hopes that once teenagers become involved, the altruistic projects will become lifelong passions that they will eventually pass on to the next generation.

Anyone he can’t reach personally through his organization he hopes to reach through one of the daily messages on his colorful calendar, the proceeds from which will support Areyvut programming.

Just one positive idea can change the course of events in a life, he mused.

"Everything you do can impact someone in a profound way," he said. "If it’s just one thing someone will do differently to help someone, that’s pretty powerful."

Email: yellin@northjersey.com