A Front Row Seat To Kindness

Introducing the Cups of Kindness Collection

Six months ago, our Executive Director Maya Enista Smith shared the story, below, of a fundamentally simple but deeply human act of kindness that she witnessed at her local Starbucks.

Today, we’re so excited to announce that Born This Way Foundation and our Co-Founder Lady Gaga are teaming up with Starbucks to spread that message of kindness even further. We share a belief that our communities are strongest when we treat one another with compassion, respect, and generosity and we want to inspire music lovers, coffee drinkers, and everyone in between to put that philosophy into action.

So to kick off this partnership, Starbucks is launching the Cups of Kindness collection – four delicious and colorful drinks inspired and approved by our very own Lady Gaga. For every drink purchased between June 13th and June 19th, 25 cents will go towards Born This Way Foundation and our work to build a kinder, braver world.

So head to your local Starbucks and enjoy a Cup of Kindness today! You’ll be helping to support Born This Way Foundation programs like Channel Kindness and the idea that kindness can be a force for good.

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It’s pouring rain in Northern California and I’m just sitting down to start an action-packed day of work, preparing for #KickOffForKindness and planning an epic Year Of Kindness. I – of course – have my coffee with me; that coffee is one of the few things I’ll leave my office for today.

My job is kindness, and it’s incredible. In 2017, I’ve committed to thinking about kindness beyond the fact that I’m lucky to have it as the number one deliverable on my work plan; how is the world kinder because of your work today? I’d love to expand the answer to that question and think about what it means for me as a mom, as a community member, as a wife, as a friend?

We’re only 10 days into the year but I want to share a lesson I learned today in hopes that it reminds you to not only think about kindness, look for kindness and practice kindness, but also to acknowledge kindness in others.

Yesterday, on my daily coffee run at my neighborhood Starbucks I ran into my good friend Heidi.

Heidi’s beautiful three year old daughter is undergoing brain surgery tomorrow to remove tubers that are causing seizures in her little body. Heidi’s daughter bounced around Starbucks and asked me (as she usually does) if she could have a cookie. I know what cookies can do to three year olds at 10 AM, but this time I didn’t even look at Heidi for permission. I picked her up and asked her to point to the cookie she wanted and as we waited in line to pay for the cookie, I gestured to Gina (the manager at Starbucks) that this little girl was having brain surgery tomorrow.

I mouthed, mother to mother, ‘can you even imagine?’ Gina and I shook our heads at each other and she handed the little girl her cookie.

I left Starbucks, hugged Heidi, waved at Gina and went to work.

An hour later, I received a text from Heidi with a beautiful picture of her daughter, hugging a Starbucks bear. She wrote, “Your baristas are the best.”

Gina had given her a bear to keep her company in the hospital and with that bear, Gina gave Heidi kindness, acknowledgement and recognition of her incredible strength and courage.

I told my husband the story, I shared in Heidi’s joy as she treasured the unexpected but much appreciated act of kindness from a stranger ahead of a difficult, uncertain time. I kept this story of kindness to myself, mostly.

This morning, I stood in line at the same Starbucks to order the same coffee from the same friendly faces. Gina asked me urgently, when would I know about the surgery? Did they need anything else? She had just been talking to her District Manager (who was seated at a corner table in the store) about the little girl and how much it had moved her to meet her. I promised her I would keep her updated and thanked her for the cup of coffee. I got in my car, preoccupied by the Super Bowl or another memo I had to write, and thought about this story that had just unfolded at this store over the past two days.

The strangers who had been kind to me, to my friend, to each other and had done so without the expectation of anything in return. Only I had the full picture of the depth of Heidi’s fear around the surgery, the joy that Gina’s simple action had brought her daughter and the genuine concern Gina had for the child of a stranger. I sat in the driver seat and took out a business card and wrote a note to the District Manager. I went back into the rain, ran into the store and handed her the card without a word and ran back out.

Now, I have a lot of work to do and writing this blog has taken up a chunk of my morning but it was worth it. I had a front row seat to kindness this week, and I want to tell you about it and I hope you’ll look for it and tell me about it.

Kindly Yours,
Maya Enista Smith
Executive Director

On Friday, one of my daughter’s preschool teachers jokingly asked me what I was planning to get my boss – the lady who could have anything – for her birthday. I laughed and answered, “I am really good at presents.” It is true. For Christmas, I sent her business cards that said “You’re So Cool, I’m Not Even Mad About It” for her to hand out in meetings, and the previous birthday I gave her inspirational, though expletive-laden stationary.

Today, she’ll turn 31 years old and on behalf of our incredible team at Born This Way Foundation and the millions of young people we work with and for, I’ll give her Channel Kindness.

I started working on Channel Kindness while I was on maternity leave, struggling through postpartum depression, and overwhelmed by the negativity in my own mind and in the world around me. I had been given the assignment to think about what a platform for young people to share the every day and heroic acts that they witness and do themselves that are contributing to building a kinder and braver world.

I struggled to imagine how I could provide a world of kindness, compassion and community to my son. My diverse, entrepreneurial, and collaborative generation appeared to be under attack; the burden of educational costs, the high unemployment rates, the growing number of young people responsible for caring for an aging parent, the growing economic divide between the people who had more than they could ever imagine and those that didn’t know where their next meal would come from. I reflected on my own reality and in those dark days, feared for the reality that my son would grow up into.

I took out a yellow folder and I labeled it Project X and each day I would sit at my local Starbucks with my son in a bucket seat, sleeping happily or coo’ing as he discovered the world around him. I read newspapers and cut out articles about young people. On one side of the folder, I would paper clip the positive ones and on the other side, I would paper clip the negative ones. Somehow, as the depressing pile on the right grew, I became stronger and more sure of my own ability to raise another life in this world, and to use my voice to shout the positivity that I so desperately wished to be reading and feeling. I read article after article about my violent, apathetic, lazy, and disengaged generation and I thought of the people I had been fortunate enough to meet in my life and each of them became a data point for Project X and in my confidence as a mother and a leader.

I have spent the past four years meeting, writing to, and hearing from hundreds of thousands of young people who are powerful data points that in spite of (perhaps, because of) the many, many reasons that they could be disheartened and disengaged, they actively choose to live and to tell a different story. They choose to focus on the good. They – we – are not naïve. On a personal, community, and global level, we know that we face crises on many levels, but we also know that in order to stand through today’s crises as well as tomorrow’s, we must not only believe but prove that the good outweighs the bad, that our strength outweighs our weakness, and that love outweighs hate.

I have now met the incredible young people that have brought the vision of Channel Kindness to life and I am even more sure of the power of heartfelt, honest, and brave stories and the power of the kindness, compassion, and commitment to problem solving and collaboration within my generation. I am confident in the world that my children will inherit. Here on this website, at Born This Way Foundation, for me in my life, the goal of our work is simple: channeling kindness.

Lady Gaga, Happy Birthday girl. Thank you for asking the question, setting the powerful vision, and channeling kindness in all that you do and all that you are.

XO,

Maya

As 2016 draws to a close, the Born This Way Foundation team has been reflecting on everything we have accomplished this year – with support from you and from individuals and organizations around the country who have been more generous than we could have ever asked for.

We’re proud of the work we’ve done over the last 12 months (and so excited for the next 12!) but we couldn’t do it justice by summarizing it here. Instead, below is a special note from Born This Way Foundation Executive Director Maya Enista Smith sharing her reflections on the Share Kindness Experience, our amazing partnership with TODAY  that took place this month at the iconic 30 Rockefeller Plaza. We hope it inspires you to be kind in your own communities this holiday season.

2017 is going to be even bigger for Born This Way Foundation, but we need your help to make that possible. If you want to help us make the world a kinder and braver place, donate today.

On the way to Rockefeller Center yesterday morning, I checked in for my return flight home. The last leg of five round-trip, cross country flights in the month of December and my last flight of the year. After this morning’s flight, I will have flown more than 150,000 miles in 2016, chasing the sun across the country all in the name of building a kinder and braver world.

When the Share Kindness Experience at 30 Rock opened for the last time on Friday morning, I was somewhere over Minnesota on my way home. As I reflect on why what we did in that space matters and how #ShareKindness and our partnership with TODAY helped further our work at Born This Way Foundation, I think about the wise words of one of the best ambassadors of kindness out there: Tom Tait, the Mayor of the City of Kindness, Anaheim, CA.

Mayor Tait spoke during our Kindness Conversation about kindness as an action word; pointing out that you need to actively be in service to another person without the expectation of anything in return to be kind.

The most beautiful part of the Share Kindness Experience was the activity happening in the space:

• A young mother bending down to lift her beautiful three year old daughter up to the Loose Change Donation Station and reading the description of each non-profit to her, adding her own commentary on why their work mattered and patiently answering her many questions (We raised $2,000 for the Ali Forney Center, the Food Bank of South Jersey, the YMCA, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Team Rubicon, and charity: water.)

• The groups of school children from local elementary schools throughout the city who filled the tables of the Kids’ Food Basket station and helped to decorate more than 3,700 bags for an incredible organization that works to combat childhood hunger. I told the story of the little boy in Michigan at least a thousand times this month: he was living in difficult conditions and during a site visit from the organization, they found that he had wallpapered his room in the beautiful bags that volunteers from around the country had decorated. The staff member turned to him and asked him why he had kept them all, and in a house filled with very little, he innocently answered “because they are mine.”

• The energetic and uplifting music that was pumping through the speakers, curated by Lady Gaga and Born This Way Foundation and provided by our partners at Apple Music.

• An older couple sitting at the MINTED station, where we wrote over 3,400 cards for the men and women serving in our military and children hospitalized over the holiday season. The couple reflected on their own sacrifice as a family during World War II and shared their words of wisdom with today’s veteran’s through the American Red Cross Holiday Mail for Heroes campaign. They had gotten lost on their way to the NBC Experience Store, stumbled into our space and spent more than 45 minutes writing beautiful cards and reading them out loud to one another.

• Loud, large groups of energetic teenage girls lining up to take GIF after GIF in our photo booth. When asked to sign our Kind Monsters Pledge, they told heartbreaking stories of meanness among their own friends online and in school, while waiting patiently in line to commit to “I will be conscious that what I say online has an impact, and lead by example by using my online presence to encourage and empower others.”

The school children from PS109 will never meet the students in Grand Rapids that will receive their beautifully decorated lunch bags. The older couple writing well wishes to service members will never get to shake the hands of the brave men and women who will read their cards. And yet, despite that and perhaps even because of that, almost 26,000 people poured through the doors of the Share Kindness Experience, taking a break from their own busy, overscheduled lives to be in service to another person without the expectation of anything in return.

I have two beautiful children and a wonderful, accomplished husband with an equally demanding job but I travel more now than I did before earning the titles of mom and wife. Traversing the globe to talk about kindness, encourage acceptance, celebrate diversity and inclusivity and learn from people in big cities, rural towns and everywhere in between is so much more important because of (and for) the other members of the Smith family. So, here’s to another year of kindness and thank you to each and every person who made this truly incredible Share Kindness Experience come to life.

In Kindness,

Maya

This week, as we sit down with our loved ones and friends to share meals, share memories, and share thanks, all of us here at Born This Way Foundation want to take a moment to thank all of YOU.

We would not have been able to do any of the amazing things we have accomplished this year if it was not for the endless generosity and support of our community. The foundation was created in response to your fears, your hopes and our collective dream for a kinder, braver, and more accepting society.

This Giving Tuesday is an opportunity for you to help us continue to grow. Last year, your generous donations helped us expand our team and in turn we were able to reach more young people than ever before! We were able to bring together hundreds of students from around the country to take part in a vital conversation about school climates. We were able to help launch a movement to make the internet a safer and more inclusive space for young people and all users. And with amazing partners from Mattel to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, we were able to bring the conversation around kindness to the next level.

This year, your generosity on Giving Tuesday can help us to continue this progress. It will help support our new initiative – Channel Kindness – as we bring together youth reporters across the country to use their eyes, ears, and hearts to change the narrative on young people in the media.

It will also help us continue our Born Brave Experience Study. Currently in its third phase, we’ve already collected data from thousands of youth to better understand how we can support their empowerment and wellness.

But, in order to do this, we need your support.

This holiday season we hope you remember that every dollar you donate counts and goes towards our programming and the young people we work with and work for. We are so thankful to have such amazing partners and supporters that inspire us every day and make our work possible. Thank you.

Kindly Yours,

Maya Enista Smith

When Lady Gaga spoke last week, she said things that were true then and, somehow, have become even truer today. She said if we are genuine Americans (and we are, all of us) we must go from viewing people we disagree with as adversaries to viewing them as allies. We need to stand together, for ourselves and for each other.

We need to grieve together. We need to celebrate together. We need to strategize together. We need to mobilize together. We need to hear each other and we need to see each other. We need to comfort and we need to be comforted. We need to listen and we need to be listened to.

To choose good, to choose kindness, to choose community, to honor people that disagree with you – whose opinions run contrary to all that you believe to be true about the world – is not an easy choice. But we don’t want to make the easy choice. We want to make the best choice. We want to make the brave choice.

We believe now, as we have always believed, that America is not America without its people. We need America, and America needs us. One person does not define America. We define America.

Bravely Yours,

Maya Enista Smith

Executive Director