Rachel Hunt’s brother died of a heroin overdose in 2018. To help heal, she launched Tiny Kindness on Instagram to share small ways to spread joy.
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A couple picked up a woman’s ball of knitting yarn that had fallen under an airplane seat. A heart-shaped Christmas tree ornament given to parents in honor of their stillborn son. That friend who sent corn tortillas to her friends when she was homesick and living abroad.
Rachel Hunt had a 10-year-old sister who was kind to her when her brother died of a heroin overdose in 2018. For black tea with lemon and honey, I poured the leaves straight from the pack into water. It was a coincidence, but it had a purpose.
Hunt’s grief led to the birth of Tiny Kindness, a social media project where users document the small moments of great love. It’s not a coincidence, nor will it be easily forgotten.
“They’re not like a false version of joy, they’re not like a false version of positivity. But it’s an admission that, ‘Oh, that hard thing was actually hard,'” Hunt said. “Divorce was hard, death was hard, and losing my brother was hard.”
The Instagram account @tinykindnesses has amassed a 50,000-strong following, spreading hope amidst the heavy and dizzying news cycle and capturing small acts of joy born of the kindness of others.
“We need to know what’s going on in the world,” Hunt said. “But sometimes it feels like that’s all there is to it,” she added. Hunt tracks where acts of kindness take place. “Because it literally happens anytime and anywhere.”
“More than something big and difficult.”
Growing up in Oregon, Ms. Hunt shared a bond with Hiram Hunt, the eldest of six children.
After the housing crisis of 2008, she had just finished her master’s degree and lost her love in Boston. Her brother invited her to move to Los Angeles to live with him and his family. He gave her a car to drive – a huge kindness. But what Hunt is best remembered for are his small gestures, small acts of kindness.
He left the light on for her. He said, “Take care and be safe.” Then, “Drive safely and text me when you arrive.”
“I feel like he showed up for me in big ways and small ways. And he taught me a lot about what care is and what it’s like,” Hunt told USA TODAY.
By 2017, Hunt had become a successful author, known for her work examining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the intersections of faith, motherhood, and feminism.
She received the Mormon Epistolary Society’s Poetry Award that year for her collection of poems, Mother’s Milk.
The following year, in October 2018, my brother passed away. Nine days before her brother died, Hunt moved to China. A year after his death, Hunt launched Tiny Kindness.
She was inspired after drinking that cup of tea made with love by her sister’s family. “It was very moving, and it didn’t cost a lot of money,” Hunt said. “It didn’t take long, but they saw me in this moment when I needed some special love.” Since then, Hunt has shared more than 5,000 stories of small acts of kindness from followers in more than 88 countries.
2024 was also a tough year for Hunt.
She filed for divorce from her ex-husband in June. Her father became ill in July. He entered hospice care in August. Her father passed away in October. Her daughter then spent 31 days at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis during the holidays. Then a friend from Utah stepped up to pack four Christmas stockings for the kids. Another friend from Utah went to the store and bought last-minute gifts for Hunt’s children.
“These very small moments are more important than the big difficult things that are real at the same time, so I feel like I have both,” Hunt said.
“Beauty is born from sadness”
Last year was also difficult. Hunt’s divorce was finalized on February 13, her birthday. Ms. Hunt broke up with her new boyfriend.
Hunt, who now lives in Columbus, Indiana, turned the page.
She submitted the draft of her book on October 2nd, the anniversary of her father’s death. The stories have been cut from 5,000 to 200, and the final draft of her upcoming project will be combined with submissions from Hunt’s favorite Tiny Kindness. “Beauty can come from sadness, and beauty coexists, as if it’s always part of the story,” Hunt said.
Her selected novels will be published by Hachette Publishing, one of the “Big 5” publishers (others are HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster).
The headlines roar. Life, and the world, can be difficult.
Submissions continue to arrive. From a passenger on a Phoenix flight bound for San Antonio, Texas. Australian parents receive Christmas ornaments after their son’s stillbirth. A long-distance friend from Albania received a delivery of corn tortillas.
Hunt writes of her own small moment when her sister’s child gave her a cup of tea full of leaves.
She’s also putting out something.
Kind.
