Three Stops in Tacoma for Kindness
Team Born This Way Foundation was awake early, sending emails before 7 AM and taking conference calls over the noise from buzzing fans, cooling us in the historic Seattle heat wave. I was responding to emails while texting the team at LiveNation as Rachel told me that our Lyft had arrived, and I flippantly said “I have so much work to do, I don’t have time for kindness.”
Three times today I was humbled and reminded – through the incredible stories of young people and their advocates – why kindness, compassion, and affirmation are urgent.
1. YouthCare
We arrived at YouthCare late and I wrapped up a phone call as I walked through the doors of the lime green building, surrounded by a group of young people waiting for lunch service to begin. YouthCare builds confidence and self-sufficiency for homeless youth by providing a continuum of care that includes outreach, basic services, emergency shelter, housing, counseling, education, and employment training.
These young people were there because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. More than 40% of the population served by this incredible organization were LGBTQ and we learned that many of them had been kicked out of their homes when they had come out to their parents. It was a story I had heard many times before but today, being far from my own children, I was shocked by the choice these parents had made to reject their own children when they were brave enough to share who they truly were with the only people who they’d believe would love them unconditionally.
I promised myself (and them my husband, via text) that there would be nothing my own children could tell me that would cause me to reject them and while I will certainly make many, many mistakes as a parent, not affirming who my children believed themselves to be will not be one of them.
2. Treehouse
Our next stop was Treehouse, an organization that works towards a world where every foster child who has the opportunities and support they need to pursue their dreams and become productive members of our community. Their Warehouse – a store designed with help from Nordstrom – looks as organized, clean, and well organized as any department store I’ve ever been in. Each clothing item had a tag with one note conspicuously missing – the prices.
At the Wearhouse, foster youth and their caregivers can shop – for free. As I walked around the pristine space, gravitating towards the toddler section, I overheard Treehouse staffer Jesse mention that we had just missed another shopper, a woman caring for an infant who had been abandoned. My head whipped around and tears welled up in my eyes. I walked back to him, “Wait, what? Abandoned?” He nodded, unsurprised by the news he was reporting.
I thought again about my own children and the heartbreaking circumstances surrounding a parents’ decision to abandon their own child with the hope that uncertainty was better than reality.
After touring the Wearhouse, we spent some time helping to sort donated clothing, getting the items ready for “sale.” Rachel watched me closely, expecting me to burst into tears each time we folded an item of children’s clothing. I hadn’t cried yet but on our next visit, I would.
3. Seattle Children’s Hospital
We took an unplanned detour to the psychiatry ward of Seattle Children’s Hospital after meeting one of their staff members for coffee earlier that morning. She had casually mentioned that while celebrities pile into the Hospital’s other units, no one wants to visit the psychiatric patients.
Celebrities we were not, but we’d come, we told her. As the daughter of a psychologist, I’ve been in psych wards before and watched locked doors on padded rooms shaken for hours by the patients inside and heard the intercoms buzz for back up in restraining an unruly patient. Those images disappeared as we walked the bright, open, light-filled hallways of Seattle Children’s Hospital.
The unit is proud if of its verbal de-escalation policy that makes physical restraint a rare, absolute last resort. They have no padded rooms, only comfortable bedrooms for their young patients, and extra space for families to sleep, rest, and participate in healing activities. In common room after common room, we saw parents sitting calmly next to their children meeting with doctors, playing games, or simply talking.
It was a hopeful place; an adjective that is not often used to describe mental illness but a sign of changing times and changing practices.
I am grateful for Brittny, Nick, Jesse, Gretchen, and Tiffany – and all of the other amazing, tireless advocates for young people that we met in Seattle and Tacoma. I had no more important thing to do than to be present in these conversations, learning about these important programs and using the platform, relationships, and networks that I have to further propel their work further by sharing it with you and asking you to share it as well.
Kindly Yours,
Maya Enista Smith
Executive Director
This week, our co-founder embarked on the Joanne World Tour and Born This Way Foundation hit the road with her. We’re calling it our Channel Kindness Tour and we’re on a mission to spread kindness and inspire bravery in communities across the country and beyond. There will be in venue pop-ups, youth-led events, and community gatherings, but we know not everyone will be able to make it to a Channel Kindness Tour stop. That’s why we’re launching the #KindFor30 Challenge.
We know that simple acts of kindness – as simple as giving someone a hug or buying a cup of coffee for the person behind you in line – can help increase our happiness and feelings of self-worth. In fact, our recent survey shows that kindness has a profound impact on a young person’s mental health with youth who describe their environments as kind having higher mental health inventory scores.
But just because kindness is powerful doesn’t mean it has to be difficult or complicated. We define kindness as an act in service to someone else, without the expectation of anything in return.In the words of our Co-Founder and President Cynthia Germanotta: “There are so many ways we can all immediately practice more kindness… Being aware of people other than yourself is an important step. Take that pause and call that friend or relative you haven’t spoken to in a while. Volunteer for something. We put going to the gym on our calendar…why not put being kind on it, too?”
Through these straightforward steps we can make the world not just kinder and braver but more inclusive, vibrant, and productive. And the #KindFor30 Challenge is here to help get you started. We’ve come up with 30 suggested activities to inspire you to share kindness with your family, friends, neighbors, and yourself!
Our team will be joining you, from the road, and we’re starting today in Seattle with Youth Cares and Treehouse. We’d love for you to join us and together, let’s see if you can complete one every day for a month – it’s that easy and if you come up with other ways to spread kindness, tell us!
So starting today, no matter where you are, we invite you to put kindness on your calendars and join us for the #KindFor30 Challenge!
Check out the challenges below and make sure you share your progress on social media with #KindFor30.
Can’t get enough #KindFor30 challenges? We got you covered.
This morning, the Born This Way Foundation team woke up in Vancouver, Canada.
Tonight, Lady Gaga will hit the stage for her first performance on the Joanne World Tour and we’ll be excitedly watching and dancing until our feet hurt.
But we didn’t come to Vancouver for the music – we came for the kindness.
Born This Way Foundation will leverage more than 35 tour stops by organizing or participating in a variety of events and activations that will support our mission of engaging youth to foster kindness, improve mental wellness, and create more positive environments.
The first stop last night was the Elizabeth Fry Center, in New Westminster where we had dinner with a couple dozen incredible young people, ages 6 to 16. We had the privilege of sitting with these young people, hearing their stories, and inviting them to write good luck to Lady Gaga ahead of her first performance.
I sat next to a young man, excited that I worked for Lady Gaga but eager to know if I had ever met his idols – Metallica. He detailed for us the incredible Grammy performance that Lady Gaga and Metallica gave and his parting words to me were, “Tell Lady Gaga to tell Metallica that I said hi.” I will happily pass along that message.
After dinner was served, I walked around the room and cleaned up the empty tables. I asked a beautiful young girl in the corner if I could take her plate and she said, “Sure, thanks.” As I was removing the plate in front of her, she looked up and me and said, “I’m a good person.” I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach at her innocent declaration.
“Of course you are. Of course you are,” I said, almost in tears. I don’t know what prompted her to tell me that and I don’t think my response to her was sufficient but the goal of the next five months is for us to stand alongside young people, hear and affirm their stories, and then use the platforms, voices and partnerships that we have access to work alongside these young people to build a kinder and braver world.
Last night’s room was filled with good children. Children facing serious challenges and doing so with positivity, resilience and determination. I sat down with Shawn Bayes, their Executive Director, and asked my favorite question; “What do you need? What do the children in this room need?”
She told me that they serve more than 1,700 children of incarcerated parents per year through their Saturday Club Program, their camp program, and through an incredibly emotional literacy program in which incarcerated parents record themselves reading books to their children.
Shawn told me that they need any and all of the following; camping supplies (rain gear, footwear, sleeping bags, flashlights, water bottles), new books for children (ages 0 – 16), and – for their Saturday Club – sports equipment, musical instruments and creative art supplies.
Whether or not you’re in the Vancouver area – please consider making a donation to this incredible non-profit so that they can continue their vital work to create dignity, opportunity, and equality for the amazing families that they work with.
Kindly Yours,
Maya Enista Smith
Last week was my last week at home until December, so after I put my children to bed, I sat in the hallway outside of their doors with two maps, one of the United States and one of the world, and drew dotted lines from city to city and country to country, circling push pins that indicated each tour stop.
We’ve been talking about tour for a long time in my house and in three days, on Monday morning, I fly to Vancouver, Canada for the kick off the of the Joanne World Tour and the first of dozens of events on behalf of Born This Way Foundation.
We have three goals – on this tour and beyond: we want to make kindness cool, we want to validate and support the emotions of young people around the world, and – most importantly – we want to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health and lift up stories and experiences.
I don’t have the language to explain that to my two and four year old yet, so I used the map.
When they woke up the morning after my art project, they walked into the hallway and found it. I told them that Mama is leaving and that my job when I’m gone (and always) is to help people, to be kind, to listen to people tell me stories and to share my story with them.
My son asked me questions about hemispheres, continents, and where Mickey lives and then they both skipped downstairs for breakfast. I’m going to miss a lot of questions, breakfasts, and bedtimes over the next five months and the map and our conversation that morning will remind me why.
I am going on tour so that when I come home, 35+ cities later, I will be able to tell my children about the kindness we saw (and contributed to), the communities that we supported and helped to build, the organizations that we served alongside, the companies dedicated to working across sectors to build a kinder and braver world for their workforce and neighborhoods, and the young people who were brave enough to share their stories of kindness, struggle, and resilience with us.
So what are we doing?
We’re calling it our Channel Kindness Tour – a series of pop up activations, youth led-events, and community gatherings that will serve as opportunities to be kind, be brave, and give back.
In addition to the eight Channel Kindness Awards we’ll be giving out to recognize youth leaders who are transforming their communities through kindness, we’ll have Kindness Pop Ups at select tour stops, below, around the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Concert goers will be invited to stop by and help us spread kindness, learn more about the Foundation’s work, and hear from an amazing local nonprofit.
We’ll have existing announcements over the coming days and weeks about the other amazing activities we’ll be taking part in and organizing as part of our Channel Kindness Tour – and how you can get involved even if you can’t be there in person.
So stay tuned for more details and get ready to help channel kindness!
Kindly Yours,
Maya Enista Smith
Executive Director
August
- August 1: Vancouver, BC
- August 5: Tacoma, WA
- August 8 + 9: Inglewood, CA
- August 13: San Francisco, CA
- August 19: Omaha, NE
- August 21: Saint Paul, MN
- August 23: Cleveland, OH
- August 28 + 29: Flushing, NY
September
- September 1: Boston, MA
- September 11: Philadelphia, PA
- September 15: Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
- September 22: Barcelona, Spain
- September 26: Milan, Italy
October
- October 6 + 7: Paris, France
- October 9 + 10: London, United Kingdom
- October 17: Manchester, United Kingdom
- October 26: Berlin, Germany
November
- November 7: Detroit, MI
- November 13: Louisville, KY
- November 15: Kansas City, MO
- November 19: Washington, D.C.
- November 28: Atlanta, GA
- November 30: Miami, FL
December
- December 1: Tampa, FL
- December 3: Houston, TX
- December 5: Austin, TX
- December 8: Dallas, TX
- December 9: Oklahoma City, OK
This week, I am filling my social media feed with joyous pictures of the incredible Born This Way Foundation team sharing Cups of Kindness, explaining our mission to the Starbucks customers, trying on green aprons, and making funny faces in Starbucks stores across the country.
I am so proud of our partnership with Starbucks and so grateful to our fearless leader, Lady Gaga, for her vision and passion and bringing this partnership to life. I’ve tried to write a sentence more than once that starts with “why this matters to me..” and it has been a hard sentence to write, so I just posted another cute picture.
The Starbucks partnership matters because the words that you see every day matter – the ones on signs as you cross the street, on menus as you order your coffee, and on Saturday morning adventures that you have with your kids. If there is one word I want to see more of in this world, it’s kindness and I’m glad that more than 12,000 stores across the country (and Canada!) have kindness on the menu this week and brought to life by the incredible talent of their baristas.
The people reading those words matter.
For me, kindness is part of my every day language. I feel it when it’s present and I know how to find it when it’s not. For many people, kindness is not part of their every day vocabulary and hopefully, this partnership can help change that – for people who deserve to be celebrated for their own acts of kindness or who are desperately seeking kindness for themselves.
Let’s start a conversation and a morning cup of coffee seems like a great place to start.
The incredibly generous donation that Starbucks is making to Born This Way Foundation matters. It matters because it will enable us to support the incredible work of young people through Channel Kindness and help us continue to lift up stories about kindness, mental wellness, and positive environments.
For me, celebrating inside of a Starbucks matters for a different reason. I am the proud mother of two incredible children. My son is a curious, intelligent, kind, athletic, sweet boy. He is my sidekick; he travels the world with me and sits on stages while I give speeches. He encourages me and together, we seek adventure and create memories. I could not imagine a world without him and he has made me a better version of myself than I could have ever imagined possible.
When my son was born, almost five years ago, I thought I was prepared. I had dragged my husband to every class our hospital had to offer and I had read every book in the Parenting section of our local bookstore. I had a Pinterest board, a baby book, and some breathing exercises. I was ready.
The days and weeks following his birth proved that I needed more than books, pinned images, and lactation consultants to survive. I wasn’t filled with joy. I wasn’t filled with anything. I was numb. I watched my life from the outside and slept every moment I could and if I happened – by some unfortunate circumstance – to be awake, I cried. I cried endless, confusing tears.
My husband, Dave, texted his friends and googled variations of “when will I get my wife back.” For both of us, each day felt like an eternity. Dave encouraged me to call my doctor and through sobs, when the doctor asked me if I wanted to hurt myself or the baby, I said “I want to walk out of this house, and back into my old life. I want to leave.”
Those are the hardest words for me to type. I know one day that my son will read these words and have questions and I know I will tell him, as I’m telling you, that I was sick. I love him more than I ever knew was possible, but I was sick. I had postpartum depression and in that moment, I could not understand or control what was happening to me. I am fortunate because I have resources – in every definition of the word – but my resources couldn’t prevent the depression, they could only help me and those around me survive it.
Three weeks after he was born, my husband and my wonderful mother in law encouraged me to leave the house for the first time. It was my 29th birthday and I hadn’t eaten, showered or gotten dressed yet. I didn’t know where to go, so I went to Starbucks. I walked in, carrying the bucket seat, followed by Dave and his mom, who watched me cautiously, aware of how fragile I was. I ordered my usual – a tall, dry cappuccino with one pump of raspberry.
That day was followed by many more trips to Starbucks, even venturing alone after a couple of weeks. Most days, I would sit and cry, or read a book, or stare at my beautiful son and wonder how I was going to be the type of mother he deserved. I would promise him that together, we would figure it out and emerge stronger. I left the house, I sat in Starbucks, and I felt like I was going to be OK.
My work at the foundation is about kindness, to yourself and to others, and it’s about reducing the stigma around mental health. It’s about the power of community, wherever you might find it, and it’s about the brave steps that we all take each day to care for ourselves and for those around us. Our work is about the power of our stories, individually and collectively.
So, go to your local Starbucks and order yourself – or someone else – a Cup of Kindness (the Violet Drink is my favorite!). And then post a picture on social media, sharing why kindness matters to you.
Tag @BTWFoundation and we’ll be sending one of our classic “Be Kind” shirts to those with our favorite stories.
Together, let’s raise money for our incredible mission and please – for my son – let’s not forget about where the money goes, why the foundation exists, and the lives – like mine – that are saved by our work.
— Maya Enista Smith, Executive Director