Grieving Parents Spread Kindness to Honor Daughter: 'Making Sure the World Knows Her' (Exclusive)

Josh and Carly Berg launched the Be Like Ellie Foundation to encourage others to perform acts of kindness in memory of their late six-year-old

For Valentine’s Day, 6-year-old Ellie Berg painted watercolor cards for all 23 of her classmates, and on the back of each, she hand wrote an individual note.

“I posted a picture of her doing that, and I said, “Be like Ellie,” because Ellie went out of her way to do that, and we should be like Ellie,” her mother, 41-year-old Carly Berg remembers.

Ellie always told police officers, “Thank you for keeping us safe.” At the grocery store, Carly recalls, she said hello to strangers and complimented their shoes to make them feel happy. Unprompted, she wrote letters to her 95-year-old great-grandfather. She painted kindness rocks with her mother and grandmother. She sent a teacher she hadn’t spoken to in years a Happy Thanksgiving card and invited her to her upcoming dance recital.

“People would say to us, 'Is she this way with everyone?' Because she just made people feel like they were the most special person in the room,” says Carly.

Tragically, that caring, thoughtful little girl died in November 2023 when a tree collapsed in the family's Boulder, Colo., backyard. In May, her grieving parents launched the Be Like Ellie Foundation to keep her memory alive and continue spreading kindness the way their daughter always did.

“Ellie’s life was about kindness,” says Josh Berg, 43. “We want everyone to know Ellie's name, and we want to have the impact we believe she would [have had]."

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The Bergs hosted a fundraising concert on September 21 and raised about $30,000 for the foundation.

“This is our way of parenting Ellie without her being here. It's making sure that the world knows her, that the community knows her, that they remember her,” Carly says. “And that her impact that she hopefully would have had, had she been here, that we can still do on her behalf.”

The Be Like Ellie Foundation offers "kindness grants," which individuals and nonprofits can apply for. So far, they have helped a mother pay her child’s medical bill and a musician replace stolen equipment. In November, they are hosting a 30-days of kindness challenge on Instagram.

“All we want is for the whole world to know Ellie,” says her mother, Carly Berg. “And to know that people are out there doing good.”

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The Foundation gives out Be Like Ellie bracelets and stickers that say “Spread Love, Be Kind, Play Music." After the foundation gifted stickers to a second grade class, the students wrote letters describing their plans to be kind.

“I cried,” Josh says. “It takes the smallest effort to change the world.”

Their website offer lists of ways people can spread kindness — many that cost nothing — like sharing your umbrella with a stranger or writing a thank-you note.

"If one person does something kind, you've changed the world," her father says.

For more on Josh and Carly Berg — and other people across the country who’ve made big acts of kindness — pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now, or subscribe.

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