Most of us had the occasional substitute teacher in school, but we bet they were never quite like the one that came to this Los Angeles classroom:

Today we are thrilled to unveil this important message starring our very own co-founder, Lady Gaga, as part of our partnership with Staples and DonorsChoose.org! Check out the video – and share it with your friends and family! – to see how Lady Gaga brought an extra dose of kindness with her when she visited a middle school earlier this month.

Staples, through their Staples for Students program, helps to make sure students have the materials and resources they need to learn and teachers across America use DonorsChoose.org to fund projects that address their students’ needs. Together, we’re teaming up to support positive school climates and inspire kinder classrooms.

According to a report by Sesame Workshop, 86% of teachers and 70% of parents say they worry often that the world is an unkind place for children. Born This Way Foundation, Staples, and DonorsChoose.org believe we can change that, starting with our schools.

Just check out these amazing projects teachers are hoping to fund to inspire their students to be kinder and support their emotional wellness:

• Help Mrs. Johnson in West Valley City, Utah provide her middle school class and their families with books that with reinforce the theme “kindness matters.”
• Help Mrs. B in Menlo Park, California inspire her students to express their feelings through journaling.
• Help Ms. Bolton in Rockford, IL create a classroom that supports her preschoolers social and emotional development through fun and interactive activities.
• Help Mrs. Trombly in Lowell, Massachusetts provide her special needs students with resources to support their unique emotional needs.

Want to help? Visit Staples for Students to learn how you can support this partnership AND enter to win a $50,000 scholarship and a trip for two to an upcoming Lady Gaga concert!

We are thrilled to announce that we’re partnering with Staples to empower students and teachers alike to foster more positive and welcoming environments in our schools. As part of the incredible “Staples for Students” program, we’ll be working with Staples and the phenomenal DonorsChoose.org to help ensure that every child can learn in a classroom that supports their needs and sparks their imagination.

In the words of our Co-Founder Lady Gaga, “Classrooms that are positive and welcoming are classrooms where students can discover their passions and unlock their full potential…Kindness is one of the most important and most impactful values we can instill in students, and I look forward to working with Staples to foster positive classroom environments where every student feels safe, heard, and empowered.”

Stay tuned for more exciting details – including how you can help support this partnership AND enter to win a $50,000 scholarship and a chance to see Lady Gaga in concert. In the meantime, please join us in thanking Staples for their generous support. Together, we can create kinder, more positive environments for young people across the country.

In 2017, together with our co-founder Lady Gaga, we launched the #CupsOfKindness Collection with Starbucks. We hoped our four drinks would encourage everyone to start their day with a little extra kindness.

And the results couldn’t be more inspiring!

Thousands of you joined us in spreading love and joy through #CupsOfKindness. We saw #CupsOfKindness photos from around the country, from hundreds of different Starbucks. With your help, we raised over $250,000 – wow.

It means so much to us to see our community rise up for kindness. Every act of kindness, no matter how small, makes a difference to someone. Whether it’s finding a moment of self-care in a busy day or surprising the stranger in line behind you with a cup of coffee, the world gets a little brighter when you make time for kindness.

Thank you to Starbucks for working with us to make this amazing collection come to life. And thank you to everyone who supported us with a #CupsOfKindness purchase.

Below are just some of our favorite moments from the last week! Did you try #CupsOfKindness? Which one was your favorite? Tell us in the comments!

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.

A post shared by Born This Way Foundation (@btwfoundation) on Jun 13, 2017 at 8:52am PDT

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