What would the Toledo area be like if all of The Blade’s readers did something nice for a neighbor this holiday season? Let’s find out. The Blade today is challenging our readers to perform “a million acts of kindness” between now and Christmas.

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If all of our readers — whether of The Blade, the eBlade, toledoblade.com, or one of our other online publications — would reach out in kindness to someone else, those gestures would greatly exceed 1 million; in fact, it would be a multiple of millions.

But we like the idea of denominating 1 million acts of kindness because we know our readers have big hearts.

There are many ways to express kindness, but the basic idea is to open up to our neighbors who are alone, sad, or in need and do something (large or small) to relieve their situations.

The hearts of our readers have been touched this past week by the story of Punky, the gentle old dog whose owner’s financial hardship forced her to give up her only companions in the world — her beloved dogs — to the county dog pound.

It was gratifying to see people step up to donate funds to enable one dog, 14-year-old Punky, to go home, but it was sad that her other dog had already been killed by the pound.

We believe there are infinite acts of kindness possible this holiday season in the Toledo area. So we are asking our readers consciously to strive to perform an act of kindness — cumulatively 1 million acts of kindness — before Christmas.

We will report through Christmas Day on some of the acts readers choose to share. And while most acts will not be reported, they will be known to God and will warm the hearts of our readers who perform them.

May God bless our community in this season of hope and joy.

First Published December 7, 2014, 5:00 a.m.