Sometimes we just need a nudge to do something that’s really good. 

Early this month, an anonymous donor at Severna Park United Methodist Church in Maryland offered $100 bills to 100 congregants. Their charge was to look around them and see where they could brighten a dark hour. And as The Washington Post reported, her hunch was that the resulting gestures would enrich both recipient and giver at Christmastime.

It was really more than a hunch. Over the summer, weighed down by the death of Heather Heyer, who was killed during the white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Va., the donor spontaneously gave a coffee shop cashier a gift card, telling her to treat customers until it ran out. As she left, her spirits lifted.

So she shared that joy with fellow congregants, who spent the $100, and often more, on everything from having pizza with homeless individuals on the steps of a Baltimore church to paying off strangers’ layaway accounts. They told their pastor they took the charge particularly seriously because of its provenance. “That to me is good theology,” he said. “It’s a good way to think about your life, that you’ve been entrusted with great gifts. And how do you turn around and use them?”

My guess is more than a few will continue to ask themselves that question as the new year begins.

Now here are our five stories, showing the spirit of integrity, exploration, and conservation at work.