Every year, Kristina Ulmer gives each of her ninth-grade students a $20 bill. They can spend it however they choose, with just a single stipulation: Spend it on an act of kindness.
It’s a tradition that the Pennsylvania English teacher has been keeping for nearly a decade, after she lost her 29-year-old sister Katie in a car accident. Katie had left behind a $100 waitressing tip in her wallet, and Ulmer wanted to use it for something special in her sister’s honor.
So she matched the money with her own savings and distributed it to her students, challenging them to use it for good.
"I want them to make connections to the people around them,” Ulmer told CBC News. “I wanted them to notice that, you know, people around them could possibly be struggling.”
The annual project, which is now funded by Horsham High School, has been a huge success. Through the years, students have used the money to bake cookies for first responders, donate food to local food banks, and buy yarn to crochet tiny hats for premature babies at the local hospital.
"A lot of people stereotype that age, and they say they're self-centered or, you know, they don't see outside of themselves,” Ulmer said of her rising teens. “And I just don't see that.”
Today, the project is not just limited to Ulmer’s ninth graders. Former student Sydney Cassel told the Washington Post that she and several other classmates have continued doing the “$20 Kindness Challenge” every year, even though they have long since left Ulmer’s classroom.
“You don’t have to have millions,” Cassel said. “Anyone can make a difference.”
A version of this article originally appeared in the 2025 Education Edition of the Goodnewspaper
Header image via Tima Miroshnichenko
