Our Story
Where it began
In 2014, high school English teacher Kristina Ulmer faced an unimaginable loss when her younger sister and only sibling, Katie Amodei, died in a car accident. Katie was just 28 years old.
Kate had always been especially concerned with people who were struggling or less fortunate. She noticed when someone needed help and cared deeply about what she could do for others. Shortly before her death, she became an EMT, choosing a career that would allow her to spend her life helping people when they needed it most.
In the days after Kate died, Kristina found herself holding onto her sister’s wallet, still filled with the cash Kate had earned waitressing on the morning of her death. The money felt different now. Kristina couldn’t bring herself to spend it on anything ordinary, but she also didn’t know what to do with it. So she tucked it away, knowing that someday she wanted to use it for something meaningful, something that reflected who Kate was and the life she had hoped to live.
For four years, the money remained untouched.
Where purpose took shape
In 2018, while teaching Fahrenheit 451 to her ninth-grade English students, Kristina thought again about Kate’s money. As her class explored Ray Bradbury’s warnings about an increasingly disconnected society, she wanted students to do more than analyze his ideas;he wanted them to look up, notice others, and experience the empathy and human connection missing from Bradbury’s world.
Kate’s money had finally found its purpose. Kristina exchanged the cash for $20 bills and challenged each student: Use this $20 to do something kind for someone else. Students made meals for people experiencing hunger, care packages for military members, hats for premature babies, pillowcases for children battling cancer, and even handed out donuts to strangers. Along the way, they discovered needs they hadn’t known existed and organizations serving people in their own communities.
Through reflection, students saw that while empathy often inspires kindness, kindness can also build empathy. By acting first, they learned about others and began to see their experiences differently.
Where it led
What was intended to be a one-time classroom assignment didn't end when the semester did.
The challenge returned with the next group of students, and then the next. Word began to spread. People who heard the story donated so future students could receive their own $20. Acts of kindness multiplied, each one different because each student was asked to decide for themselves where their $20 could make a meaningful difference.
Eventually, the story traveled far beyond the classroom. International media coverage introduced the $20 Kindness Challenge to audiences across the globe, bringing new supporters, donations, and interest from educators who wanted to create similar experiences for their own students.
Since that first class in 2018, Kristina's students at Hatboro-Horsham High School have turned more than $9,300 into hundreds of individual acts of kindness, all funded through donations. But the impact of the challenge has never been measured only in dollars. Its greater purpose is what happens when a young person is given the opportunity and the responsibility to intentionally consider someone else's needs and then act on them.
Where we are now
In 2025, growing interest in the challenge led to the creation of the $20 Kindness Challenge Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing these experiences to more young people.
Today, the foundation continues the tradition where it began, funding $20 Kindness Challenges for students at Hatboro-Horsham High School in Horsham, Pennsylvania. At the same time, it is working to make the challenge accessible far beyond one classroom by providing educators and community leaders with resources, support, and grants to bring the program to their own students and communities.
The premise remains remarkably simple: Give a young person $20 and ask them to use it for an intentional act of kindness. But what happens next can be much bigger.
Students have to look beyond themselves. They consider who might need help, learn about people and organizations they may never have encountered otherwise, make choices about how their money can have an impact, and reflect on what the experience taught them.
One $20 bill becomes an act of kindness. An act of kindness becomes an opportunity for understanding. And understanding can become empathy and connection.
