The Sweetest Day: Act of sweet kindness
October 20, 2007
The Sweetest Day is observed each year on the third Saturday in October as an act of kindness and an opportunity to remember orphans, the sick and the homebound. Today, the Sweetest Day has evolved as a means of expressing our appreciation for family, friends and coworkers in addition to remembering the less fortunate and perhaps disenfranchised members of our community.
A candy company employee named Herbert Birch Kingston is attributed with the origin of the Sweetest Day. In 1922, over 20,000 boxes of candy were given to street urchins, newsboys, orphans, the aged, and the poor in Cleveland, Ohio.
According to Wikipedia, the origin of Sweetest Day attributed to Kingston may not be as accurate as believed.
Bill Lubinger, a reporter for The Plain Dealer, contends that “Dozens of Cleveland’s top candy makers concocted the promotion 84 years ago and it stuck, although it never became as widely accepted as hoped.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s October 8, 1921 edition, which chronicles the first Sweetest Day in Cleveland, states that the first Sweetest Day was planned by a committee of 12 confectioners chaired by candymaker C. C. Hartzell. The Sweetest Day in the Year Committee distributed the 20,000 boxes of candy and the committee was joined by some of the biggest movie stars of the day including Theda Bara and Ann Pennington.
Today, the Sweetest Day extends to any person whom you would like to show a kindness to and let them know how much they mean to you. Modern observance of the Sweetest Day celebration includes gifts of candy, greeting cards and flowers — not much different than the observance of Valentine’s Day for lovers.
