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Alan Ross decided a long time ago that he wanted to give people money just for being nice.

Although it took years, he’s finally done just that, establishing the Chris Kindness Award, named after a beloved JCC East Bay teacher. One person will be recognized each month for an act of kindness, with $1,000 in prize money to be paid out by Ross himself.

A San Francisco native and resident of Berkeley for more than 30 years, Ross originally thought about establishing such an award as a way to honor his parents. He and his family were members of Congregation Beth Sholom, where he said he and his siblings were taught to give back. Then during the pandemic, he saw a young girl in his neighborhood passing out free cookies and was inspired to finally start the project.

“I thought, this is so beautiful. Here we are in this time where people are really quite unhappy, and she was just this ray of sunshine,” said the longtime professor in the Haas School of Business.

Berkeley residents are eligible to submit nominations on the award website; the nominee must live, work or go to school in Berkeley, but there are no specific requirements for what counts as an act of kindness. A winner will be selected via public voting at the end of each month. Ross plans to give out the first award in early December.

He hopes the cash prize can help people who may be struggling financially, though the award is open to anyone. “Some of the most generous, kind people I know seem to be giving their last dollar,” Ross said. “$1,000 in today’s world could make a difference to some of these people.”

Several nominations have already been submitted. At the launch at Berkeley’s Second Sundays, a monthly street festival on Telegraph Avenue, someone nominated their Starbucks barista for writing a kind message on their drink cup. More people have been nominated through the website, which Ross runs with the help of volunteers. One nomination that stood out to him is a schoolteacher who regularly meets with a former student who has social challenges to chat about the student’s favorite topic, World War II.

Chris Walton, the namesake of the award, was a teacher himself. Walton taught preschool to Ross’ children at the JCC East Bay more than 10 years ago.

Walton “was just the most amazing teacher I’d ever met,” Ross said. He volunteered in Walton’s classroom for six years, he said, never missing a Shabbat.

Walton’s sister, Kate Nelson, said her brother moved to Berkeley from the Philadelphia area to pursue music and then found a passion for teaching. Diagnosed with a learning disability at an early age, Walton used that experience to make sure his young students felt confident about themselves and their abilities, she said.

Walton passed away from cancer in 2012. When Nelson heard about the Chris Kindness Award, she burst into tears.

“I don’t think he ever thought that his life was remarkable,” she said. “I was so grateful to Alan.”

Ross, who is also the president of a private investment firm, plans to run the Chris Kindness Award indefinitely and continue funding it himself. He said he would be open to donations should he take the award beyond Berkeley, which he is considering due to the media attention the award has received.

Ross hopes the Chris Kindness Award will one day be run by his children, one a student at Berkeley High School and the other at UC Davis. Last month, his son was working on a video project to promote the award, interviewing people and asking them: What’s the kindest thing someone’s ever done for you?

“It makes you think about all the kindness that you received,” Ross said. “How special, and how often it’s not some huge thing.”