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LOS ANGELES — When 6-year-old Eva came home from a school assembly about bullying, she had one thought on her mind.
"We were having dinner and she just said, 'There's no such thing as a kind bully. If we could teach kids to be kind to each other then there wouldn't be any bullies,'" said Alex Karpman, Eva's father. "So, we started talking about it and brainstorming a little bit and every kid loves superheroes, so we created this hero SuperKind."
The family's SuperKind project, which encourages children to engage in 16 acts of service using personalized action cards and stickers, officially launched Monday on Kickstarter. The acts of service depicted on the cards include tasks like writing a letter to a member of the military to thank them for his or her service and opening the door for an elderly person.
When a child completes a task, they give the person they are serving the card with an illustration of them being the SuperKind hero. Then, they get a matching sticker to put on a certificate. Karpman said he printed prototypes of the cards for all of Eva's classmates and the children had a lot of fun spreading kindness.
"One parent said by the end of weekend her kids had done all 16 activities because they couldn't wait to get their certificate done," he said. "We got a lot of feedback like that."
Karpman worked as an attorney for five years before he decided he'd had enough and wanted to become an entrepreneur instead. He founded the custom coupon site Datevitation before creating another version for children called SillyWise, which is the family-oriented company powering SuperKind's campaign.
Love my little helper #Bekind#kindness#raok . https://t.co/bINE4adlFlpic.twitter.com/NjqhoRQx09https://t.co/NoO7VkYzue — Alex Karpman (@AlexKarpman) October 28, 2015
Karpman said it has been exciting to work on this project with his daughter.
"She's actually amazing," he said. "You can't force a first-grader to do anything, especially my daughter. She is very determined and stubborn when she wants to do something, and when she doesn't want to do something and she's just really excited about this. She sort of sees the goal and the mission and she wants to do whatever she can to help."
Eva's ambitious goal is to recruit 100 million SuperKind heroes. While Karpman said he isn't sure they will get that many participants, he does want to get the cards into as many hands as possible. To support that goal those who want physical sets of the cards and stickers can purchase them through the Kickstarter campaign. If money is tight, a free personalized PDF version is available for those who share the project on social media.
