Over the years, Elizabeth McIntyre and Paige Berhow have faced their share of disappointments, hardships and difficulties. Looking around them, they realized that they’re not alone. No one is spared from being bombarded at one time or another by frustrations at work, stresses in their personal lives and even devastating loss.
When someone feels overwhelmed with the challenges of life, even a little gesture of kindness can go a long way.
With that in mind, McIntyre and Berhow recently launched Deliberate Kindness, a business aimed at helping people feel loved and appreciated.
The duo creates and delivers boxes of kindness to people at their places of business. For $25, someone wishing to send a customized gift can do so by either ordering from the Deliberate Kindness website or by calling McIntyre and Berhow directly.
“Right now we have a few different options as far as what you can have put in the box,” Berhow explains.
For example, their gift box named Simple Kindness #1 includes a mug, a scarf, an indulgent bath product, coffee, tea or hot cocoa and a sweet treat. Simple Kindness #5 is a snack box, including mixed nuts, cinnamon bears and a bag of bridge mix, aimed at sweetening even the worst of days, according to the Deliberate Kindness website.
Clients get to choose fours items to go into each box, McIntyre and Berhow said. Along with that, the team includes a crystal, a motivational story and a handwritten note of encouragement.
A Mother’s Day basket was recently added to the Deliberate Kindness list of offerings. The basket is a colander filled with seeds, gloves, two garden tools and a treat.
Currently, the pair delivers the boxes only to places of business in Davis County and Weber County.
The idea of random acts of kindness has been popular in recent years, but what McIntyre and Berhow are doing is a little different, they explained.
“Random acts of kindness are nice. It’s nice to do things for strangers,” Berhow said. “But how about we do nice things for the people around us? It’s fun and exciting to pay for somebody’s lunch and they don’t know who did it, but how about you pay for somebody’s lunch who is your co-worker?”
McIntyre and Berhow say they would like to see their business grow and reach more people, but the real reason behind it isn’t to become rich.
“We’re in it because we want to make a difference,” McIntyre said. “I just want it to work.”
The two hope that employers will look to their business as a source to buy gifts to show appreciation to employees, offering a discount on bulk orders for incentivization.
Supporting other local businesses is a big part of Deliberate Kindness’s philosophy.
“We want to source local,” Mcintyre said. “Every item we put in the boxes now is not local, but we want it to be. We want to support other small businesses. We want to support local artisans.”
Deliberate Kindness was launched near Valentine’s Day and has been steadily growing since then. Social media and word of mouth have been huge in letting people know about the business. McIntyre and Berhow also spend a lot of time networking and getting to know other business owners.
Our goal is to deliver Deliberate Kindness to anyone for any reason. The world needs more kindness and we can provide you with an affordable way to bring a smile to someone‘s face. For each package of Kindness sold we are donating two percent to charity.
“We don’t ever want to lose sight of why we’re doing this,” McIntyre said. “We’re doing it because we are about people.
