Introducing Mitzvah Mondays

The Gratitude & Good Deed Challenge

Please help us spread the word so children and families everywhere can start their week with gratitude, kindness, and heart.

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Most of us know that starting a gratitude practice can shift our perspective — for both children and adults. That’s why we created a new Bonta Friends mission: to help everyone begin each week with intention, kindness, and joy.

As part of this challenge, before you do anything else (work, school, or even checking your phone), take one quiet moment to reflect on what you’re grateful for and commit to one intentional act of kindness in the next seven days. Many families enjoy doing this together during Sunday night dinner, which often leads to meaningful and heartfelt conversations.

We all have so many blessings in our lives. To make this simple (and fun), especially for young children, we’ve created:

✨ The Five Favorites
Simple categories to help you answer quickly, and with new ideas each week.

This week I am grateful for:

👤 A person:
📍 A place:
🎁 A thing:
🍎 A food:
🌟 Anything at all:

💜 My Mitzvah:

Then write down one good deed you’ll do for someone else.

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Mitzvah Mondays Worksheet

You can use paper, our worksheet attached or even the Notes app in your phone — even young children can participate. This simple practice has powerful emotional and psychological benefits — it builds empathy, positivity, and a deeper sense of connection. Starting your day with gratitude, and really thinking about how you can help others, truly changes how you feel on the inside.

Let’s make Mondays meaningful.

Here is an example of one of my personal list for this week:

👤 A person:

My husband

This can be anyone - someone you work with, a distant relative, a famous person you admire.

📍 A place:

My home

This can be a residence, a store, a city or a even a restaurant.

🎁 A thing:

Hiking boots (I just bought new ones and it has been snowing in Georgia — so I really needed them!)

It is easier to tie the “thing” you are grateful for to something you needed last week.

🍎 A food:

Chocolate (obviously)

I do not allow myself to say chocolate every week, although I could! This could be a fruit, a favorite restaurant dish or something someone in your family makes.

🌟 Anything at all:

I lost a close friend recently, but this week I have decided to be grateful for all our happy memories and for the blessing of seeing him, laughing with him, and hugging him the week before he passed.

This can truly be anything at all. It might be a movie, a cartoon character or even the ability to begin again after a failure. One of the great things about this list is it forces us to find some peace in any current pain.

💜 My Mitzvah:

I decided to reach out to my wonderful cousin who is going through a hard time and send over a little surprise in the mail — just to remind him that he is loved!

The Mitzvah you choose should not be something you do anyway. This is designed to make you think of something you would not normally do during the week ahead.

The Best of Our World