94. ‘Choose Kindness PG’ and Promoting a Culture of Kindness and Service within Their City (with Co-Chairs, Rebecca Cardon and Ruth Horsley)

‘Choose Kindness PG’ is a nonprofit located in Pleasant Grove, Utah. It all started after some citizens felt there was division in their community. They went to the city council proposing a plan to promote a culture of kindness and service in their city. It began with organizing kindness clubs in the local schools, and spread from there to community events, and now they also celebrate a ‘Choose Kindness’ month in February.

My guests on this episode of the podcast, Rebecca Cardon and Ruth Horsley, are the current co-chairs of ‘Choose Kindness PG.’ They share some great stories and experiences they’ve had while volunteering with this nonprofit, and also give a lot of fantastic ideas anyone could use to incorporate a similar movement in their own city.

Division and discord is unfortunately too commonplace in our society right now, but organizations like this one and people like Rebecca and Ruth are proving that we have the power to change that within our own communities, one person and one small act of kindness or service at a time.

Links mentioned in the episode:

Choose Kindness Website

Choose Kindness Instagram

Choose Kindness Facebook

We've Been Loved Service Project

Follow the podcast on social media:

Do Something More Instagram

Do Something More Facebook

Do Something More YouTube

Transcript

Melissa: Division and discord is unfortunately too commonplace in our society right now. But organizations like the one I'm featuring on the podcast today are proving that we have the power to change that feeling within our own communities.

One person and one small act of kindness or service at a time.

My guests, Rebecca and Ruth are the co chairs of Choose Kindness pg. This is a movement within their city of Pleasant Grove that promotes a culture of kindness and service in the community.

And they share so many great, fantastic, simple and doable ways that anyone could use. If you would like to create the same culture of kindness where you live.

So give it a listen. Here it is. Choose Kindness pg.

Welcome to the Do Something More podcast. The show all about service where we highlight the helpers who inspire us all to do something more. If you're passionate about nonprofits or looking for simple ways to volunteer and give back to the causes that matter to you, this is the podcast for you.

I'm your host, Melissa Draper. Stick around and I'll show you all the many ways anyone can truly make a difference in our world today.

Melissa: Welcome to this episode of the podcast. And today I am featuring a nonprofit that is local to me here in Utah county in Utah, and it's called Choose Kindness pg. It is a non profit located in the city of Pleasant Grove and they promote a culture of kindness in their city and their community and they create opportunities for others to spread intentional kindness.

And they just barely finished up doing a kindness month in February. So I'm really excited to learn more about them, to hear about the good experience experiences they've had and to also maybe inspire others to create and start something like this in their own community.

So my guests on the podcast today are Rebecca Carden and Ruth Horsley. They are the current co chairs of Choose Kindness. So Rebecca and Ruth, welcome to the show.

Rebecca: Hi. Thank you so much.

Ruth: Thanks for having us.

Melissa: Let's just start off maybe by both of you giving a short introduction and then maybe having one of you tell us kind of the beginnings of Choose Kindness, how it got started and what its mission is.

Do you want to start us off, Rebecca?

Rebecca: Sure, sure. I'm Rebecca Carden and I'm the one of the co chairs for Two's Kindness Pleasant Grove. Right now I live here in Pleasant Grove with my family. We've lived here about 18 years now.

So my kids have all grown up here. I've got four kids. Two are still at the high school. I've got a son on a mission and a daughter in college who are older.

And yeah, me and my husband live here. He's got a business here in Pleasant Grove. And. Yeah, that's it about me. Yeah, Ruth.

Melissa: Go ahead, Ruth.

Ruth: Okay, so I'm Ruth Horsley, and like Rebecca, I'm the other co chair of Choose Kindness pg and I love it. I've lived in Pleasant Grove for eight years. And we absolutely, absolutely love living here.

We are a blended family. So we have seven kids between us and we have three kids still in school. And we have two missionaries serving right now. We had three serving.

Melissa: Wow.

Ruth: And then one of them came home. So that's fun and exciting. And we have our oldest lives outside of the house working. And we.

This has been a great place, a great community for us to make our home and to put down roots and everything. So it's great.

Melissa: A lot of us Utah Countiers, I think, would say the same, right. About where we live. It's a good place to live. Well, let's just start off by hearing how this movement got started in your city and how it's grown and what you've done with it.

Rebecca: Yeah, it's in our city. We had some people in our city who brought the idea to the city council and to the mayor to start Choose Kindness Pleasant Grove. And what, I'm guessing, what year was that?

Do you remember, Ruth?

Ruth: I think it was like 2017.

Rebecca: 2017. Okay. Yeah. And there was just a lot of some division in the city going on, and they just wanted to help create a culture of kindness and to bring the community together.

So one of the city council members grabbed that, grabbed that and got the principals from the high school and the junior high and the local elementaries together. And they got, you know, city representatives, and they just kind of started Choose Kindness Pleasant Grove.

And they got a couple people to be in charge of it, to run it. And between then and now, we've kind of grown it into a program, you know, that we've.

That we've got, that runs through the schools and stuff. And so that's kind of, you know, how it got started. And I feel like it's taken some time for it to catch on and to grow and for us to kind of develop and figure out what works.

And so one of the big things that I think is having the school support, you know, is what. Is what has helped it keep going. And that's one thing that we really do at Choose Kindness.

That's one of our things, is one of our programs is through the school. So each of the elementaries and the junior high and the high school all have kindness clubs that they run in their schools.

And even Linden elementary joins us. Their kids, some of them go to PG High, so Linden elementary joins and then most of the elementaries in Pleasant Grove and even some charter schools join with us.

And they run Kindness clubs. And every school has kind of had to figure out how to do it differently in their school. And so they look a little bit different in every elementary or, you know, in the high school, of course, but they run them how it works for them.

But most of them, there's just certain kids that have. Are part of the Kindness Club and they do. We provide monthly lessons that they teach during the school year at the.

They'll teach them to the Choose Kindness kids and then some of the schools they'll teach them to those kids. And then those kids will go back and teach them in their classrooms.

Some of the schools, they do it as an after school program and the kids will come and learn and they'll. They have little lessons about kindness. So we have like a yearly theme and a monthly theme that goes along with that.

And so that has kind of the program that we've kind of developed over the years in the schools and then the junior high and the high school also, like the high school has an active kindness club that the students run.

And they're the. They do a lot of different activities at the high school that they're a part of. And anyway, is that kind of a good introduction?

Melissa: No, I love that. I've heard of like service clubs, especially at the high schools and junior highs, but I love the idea of a kindness club club.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Melissa: And what that would look like kind of probably a little bit the same, but other things you could focus on as well.

Rebecca: Yeah, similar.

Ruth: Yeah.

Rebecca: And we love the Kindness Club at the high school and they've got, they do a lot of great things. I know they today they're or tomorrow they're doing like a new student lunch that they do.

And so as through the years they get new students to come to PG High, then the, the kids will come and the Kindness Club plans a lunch. They meet them, they give them, you know, help them try to be integrated into the high school, have friends and know what's going on.

So I know the Kindness Club, they're currently, they've been planning that the last couple of days and they're doing that tomorrow, so.

Melissa: Oh, that's great. Great, great experience.

Well, Ruth, you want to tell us, is it just in the schools that you focus your programs or are there some other projects and things that You've done for this.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Melissa: Movement.

Ruth: Oh, yeah. So Rebecca did a great job talking about how the Choose Kindness PD works with the schools. And so in the community, we also do things. They're very complimentary with each other.

And so we have certain events, like you said. We had a Choose Kindness Month just got done in February. And that's an awesome month where we promote service. We promote kindness.

We have a couple of different service projects we do together that brings the community together. And then we had an event at the high school. We had Kirby Hayborn come, and he spoke about what it means to be kind.

We had a huge service project there. It was a great experience. And then Pleasant Grove City, we have a yearly tradition called Strawberry Days. And so with Choose Kindness, we are able to enlist some of these kindness clubs at the schools to help run things during Strawberry Days.

And it's really a fun part of being involved with the community because we participate in the Strawberry Days parade. We participate in some booths where they were, in a way, offering service to the community.

We have the high school kids come and they run a booth for kids at our Huck Finn Festival. And, like, the safety fair. And there's just so many opportunities to get involved, and our community has great events.

Like, we have a summer festival. We have a heritage festival. And you'll always see Choose Kindness there. Just promoting kindness and helping with whatever these events need help with.

Melissa: Yeah, I love that idea of just incorporating the kindness and the service with the events your city is already doing and participating in. And I looked on your website, and one of the things I loved, it looked like it was from that Choose Kindness Month was you had a we've been loved service project.

So I. I know most people do like the We've been booed at Halloween, but I've never seen anything like that. I was like, what a sweet idea that anybody really could do in their neighborhood or in their community.

So do one of you want to just talk about that for a little bit?

Rebecca: Yeah. That's the fun thing we've done the last couple of years, and we've started it. We've given it out at the beginning. We have a big, like Bruce said, we have a beginning of the month service project for Choose Kindness Month, which is in February.

And so at that meeting, we, like, gave out a bunch of those and asked people to go. And people in our committee, like, go start this in your neighborhood. And so that was fun.

Just a way to reach out. We're, you know, trying to do whatever we can to reach out to the. Anyone in the community, you know, with kindness and get people involved.

And so that's a really fun one we had at a. We just had a committee meeting last week where I thought it was cute because one of our committee members said she had gone and started that in her neighborhood, and that by the end of the month, it had come back and someone had given it to her.

And so we thought that was super fun, and she loved it. And one of the. She has a. A son with special needs, and the youth group had come over and brought that to him and talked to him, and.

And I don't think they knew that she had started that in their community, but it just, like, was a fun coincidence that it just happened to get back around and blessed her family, too.

So that was fun.

Melissa: Oh, that's great. And, yeah, it looked like it's. Because I know, like, the. We've been booed. You're kind of anonymous with it, but it looked like some. Some of the things you could do didn't need to be anonymous.

Like, you could just go and show some love.

Rebecca: Yeah. They showed up and brought treats. Yeah. And stopped by. Yeah. But just like we've been booed. Yeah. And we had those on our website, which was fun for anyone who could come and print, you know, print off that and just go take treats, drop it off on a neighbor's door,

and leave a sign with a heart that you know that someone's thinking of you.

Melissa: So, yeah. Yeah, that's fun.

Rebecca: And anyone could. Anyone could do it. If you want to grab the printables on our website.

Melissa: Yeah, I might leave a link to that in the show notes, because that, I think, is just a great thing that anyone, like I said, could do and promote in their own community, especially.

Rebecca: In the month of February. It's a fun way to help people feel love and feel included.

Melissa: Yeah, most definitely. Well, we always love to hear kind of personal stories here on the podcast.

Melissa: So I don't know, do either of.

Melissa: You have stories that you could share, either for yourselves or your families or even people that you've seen or have told you what having a movement like this or having opportunities to spread intentional kindness has done or how it's impacted them?

Ruth: Yeah, like, I can go ahead and share kind of how I got started with Choose Kindness PD and why I keep volunteering with Choose Kindness pd. So, like I said, we moved here about eight years ago, and I have a daughter who's currently serving a mission, but she was one of these new students,

and it's Hard. It's hard to adjust to a move for everybody, you know, no matter where you come from. And like I said, we were a blended family. And so that's when we.

That's when I got remarried, was eight years ago. And so my daughter was adjusting to a new community, new schools, a new family life and everything. And so that was a lot for her.

And she wanted to be able to make friends and have friends. And it is kind of hard, like, when you're in junior high, to kind of break those barriers and find ways to.

You feel like people have their own little groups already established from elementary school and everything. And so for her, she was just looking for, like, that place for her where she felt like she belonged.

And so by the time she got to high school, there was the Choose Kindness club at high school, and she was asked to be. To be a part of that, and she loved it.

And she was determined that she would be the president of it. She was very outgoing, and she actually did. She became the president, and she served as the president for two years, and she loved it.

It was an amazing experience for her. And they were able to implement these new student lunches and everything. And I know a lot of that came from her experiences of being a new student.

And like I mentioned before, we have all these great events that Choose Kindness helps within the communities, and she would be there with the high school kids helping the Choose Kindness City lady.

Sometimes that's what we're referred to as.

They would always, like, tell her, you need to get your mom involved. And so she's like, mom, you need to meet these ladies. They're awesome. You need to get involved.

And so I did, you know, I started helping out with that, and I loved to see how my daughter in high school, who was doing this club that she brought her a lot of fulfillment, was also able to trickle into the community.

And part of what the high school does is they go and visit these elements, elementary schools, and they try to visit every school once a year, and they share a kindness message, and they go to each classroom in that school.

And so here my daughter Lydia was, as the Kindness club president, getting all these high school kids together to go visit these elementary schools. Then I started helping with these community events, and Lydia would be there spreading kindness, and these kids from these elementary schools would run up to her and give her a hug and be like,

oh, Lydia, we love you. And of course, that was very fulfilling to her. But as a parent, that was great to see, just to see the impact she was making.

On like elementary age kids and in the high school. And I just knew that this was a great organization to be a part of because it's spreading so much goodness.

And honestly I've been helping out for about four years now. Two of those have been as a co chair. And it is sometimes it can be a lot of volunteer hours that we're putting in, but the good that comes from it is why I keep doing this.

Melissa: So yeah, absolutely. What a great example your daughter is.

When you're feeling, when you're struggling, wanting to feel part of the group or wanting to have those opportunities to connect, to step up and serve and volunteer has a magical way of helping you in those experiences.

Ruth: Well, and that's the thing I think I've really been reflecting on lately. Like, why does Choose Kindness work so well? Why is our committee so well connected? And I just keep coming back to the service that we offer.

And I think even for high school kids, we're giving them opportunities to get out into the community and do service and that brings such great connection and that's really like the secret ingredient to what we're doing.

And for myself personally, it's been very fulfilling to be able to serve and to just meet people in our community. And like I said, yes, we've lived here for eight years,

but it's been a great way for me to feel like Pleasant Grove, like I'm part of the community to get out and serve.

Melissa: Right, you're part of it, not just on the outside looking in. Yeah, that's great. Did you have any stories you wanted to share, Rebecca?

Rebecca: Oh, I'm not sure if I have a specific one, but I've just been thinking. We always just say like whatever we're doing, we just tell ourselves like if this touches one person, then that's the goal, right?

Like if this just touches one person. And we just felt like the things that we do, there's many like one persons that was touched, right? And we in during Choose Kindness month, we, we hung up kindness signs up around in the rec center.

They've got like a walking track up along the top. So we hung up some signs there and several times and this has happened, this happened to me probably three or four times when I was at the rec center.

Someone stopped me and said thank you so much for those signs. I needed that message today in my, you know, in my life. And that really touched them enough that they would reach out to me, a stranger, you know, who had a Choose Kindness shirt on, you know that,

that they stopped. And so I just thought that was just such a fun way just to remember and to reach out. The other thing we did this month that was really fun was in.

Every month, we put up signs throughout the community on Choose Kindness Month. And we had some really cute signs this year, and they said things like be kind or show love or share a smile.

You know, those kinds of themes in the community. And so we put those around, and we even had a couple people who. Who stopped by the city. They liked the sign, so they stopped and asked if they could get some.

And they talked about how they just wanted to be a part of the community and how important that was to them and how impactful that was to. For them to be able to put some signs in their yard.

And they're looking for a way to, you know, to. To spread positive messages and to connect with our neighbors because it's. I think we have a tendency to get disconnected, and it's just a really great way.

I. Anyway, I love those stories of the people, and they're people. I don't know.

We're touched by the small acts of kindness that were happening.

Melissa: Yeah, those are great examples. And I love how you remind yourselves that even if it's just one person,

because I think back to what you shared at the beginning, how this was started, because division was felt in your city, in your community. And I don't think that's a feeling that people aren't familiar with.

I think a lot of people recognize that in families, even in our neighborhoods and our communities. So that was the thought I had. Like, if someone did ask you, can you really fix that?

Can you really make progress towards fixing that with just a kindness movement? Like, does that really make a difference? What. What would your response be to that question?

Rebecca: I actually think, yeah, like, in the years since this has happened, I think we've seen a big difference in our community. And I personally, like. One thing I think is so important if you're trying to affect change in your community is you have to start with the children.

Right. That has to be A part of. It, is teaching the kids, and I love that. One part of our Choose Kindness program is to teach the kids intentionally to be kind.

You know, we hold a. We hold a monthly, a yearly. We hold a kindness retreat. That's kind of like a. It's like a field trip for students in the school, and every school will send a few of their kids to a kindness retreat.

And there we have classes and workshops and service projects where we teach them how to be kind, like practical. Practical Tips. Right. And give them chances to try that. Because kids are inherently good.

Right. And they want to be good, but they don't always know how to do that. They don't always think of other people, you know, and they. We just are selfish beings.

Right. We grow up and just do what makes sense in our own heads. But we can teach people how to reach out and how to notice other people and how to look for the good and how to do that.

And so I think that is. I mean, we've had some kids who started in the Choose Kindness program in elementary who have now graduated. It's been going long enough, which is really fun.

And I really feel like we have a pretty connected community. People love Pleasant Grove. They want to be here. You know, a lot of the division that was happening politically has really died down, and I.

I hope that Choose Kindness was a part of that.

Melissa: Yes, absolutely. And I love that to start with the children and. And because really.

Ruth: Yeah.

Melissa: Kindness and service are skills that take practice and sometimes tools given to you,

but the more you do it, it becomes more natural, part of your life. And Ruth, did you have a response to that question? Does it really make a difference?

Ruth: Yes, I would totally agree with Rebecca on that. The only thing I would add is that it just takes time. I think when we're seeing division or maybe we're not getting along or we're feeling conflict with somebody or a group of people, we instantly want it to be gone or we want to instantly fix things.

And something like the Choose Kindness program that we're running, it's taken time to build. And so I think if you do want to affect change in your area and your community and your home and your family, it just takes time.

But that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. It definitely is. And there's so much you learn along the way as you're building this and watching how it is affecting people around you.

It's an amazing experience.

Melissa: Yeah. Changing attitudes and behaviors does take time, but it's most definitely worth it.

Rebecca: Yeah. And like you said, it's a skill you can learn. It's something we can do. You know, I think sometimes we get conflict and we're tempted to just. To just go away.

Right. We don't want to engage, we don't want to be part of it, but we need to, you know, stay engaged and build relationships and reach out and kindness. You know, we got to stick with those relationships and work on them and help them, give them time.

Like Ruth said, it takes time.

Melissa: Most definitely.

Well, we do have listeners from all over, so I always love to include general advice near the end of each podcast episode. And we've talked a little bit about different ideas that things and people could incorporate.

But I would love to hear from your perspective as you've worked with this program. And Ruth, you actually work with the city as well, a little bit on advice you would give to anyone that wants to start something like this in their own community or on the city level like you have done.

What's just some general advice that you would give.

Ruth: Okay, I'll go first. So, yeah, I think what has helped our program is we were able to partner a few years ago with one of the girls who was running for Ms.

PG and was Ms. PG, and she ended up serving two terms because of COVID And she had an initiative that was the ripple effect and how one kind of act, one act of kindness, can spread a ripple effect in your community.

And so partnering with her really helped us be able to establish Choose Kindness Month. And coming up with she every year still is part of it, even though she's not Ms.

PG anymore. And she is able to come and share messages and help with these service projects. And she comes up like you kind of talked about, Melissa. On our website, we have some good resources, but we also have a calendar that goes along with our Choose Kindness Month and different little acts of service you can do every day.

Her and her mom Sarah come up with that every year and we share that with all the schools. And so I like what we did is there was already a program working that she was trying to spread and we partnered with her in order to spread that.

And I think that helped Choose Kindness grow. And recently we, the state of Utah has one kind act a day and we here partnered with them and they have so many great resources to offer communities.

And so I think you don't always have to start from the big, like from ground zero, basically. There are other programs that are running that are great and just coming and seeing if there's a way you can partner with somebody else to help grow the message that you're wanting to share so you don't have to reinvent the wheel,

basically, is what I was trying to say. But yeah, I think us being able to partner with different organizations has been huge. And I think in communities everywhere, there are good organizations that are running that just might need a little help or something that you can partner with and help spread the cause.

Melissa: Yeah, those collaborations really are a way to lift both of you in the good that you're trying to do. Did you want to add anything else, Rebecca?

Rebecca: Oh, yeah. I think that's such a great thought, Ruth, that like to help to reach out to someone else who's trying to do good. Right. And there are those. Lots of those in our community.

I think the other. So I can say I just feel like the other great thing is that like it doesn't have to be a big thing.

Ruth: Right.

Rebecca: You can just start small. Like they're high schools are looking for clubs. Right. A lot of them have service clubs. Like if there are students who are interested and go create a kindness club in your high school.

Right. Or talk to an elementary and create a kindness club. And you could start small. Right. And which is choose kindness. Did it started really small, right. And it's taken time to grow.

But there's just like so many ways to just to reach out and try to do something kind. But people are on board and everyone. People want to be kind. They want to be involved.

They want to do good things in their community. And so I just love the idea of grabbing your friends and go try to do something good. Right.

Melissa: That's great advice. And I think I'm going to steal and print off the We've been loved. I'm not going to wait till next February.

Rebecca: I love it.

Melissa: I think that's a good summer activity with my kids. Absolutely too.

Rebecca: We love it. You'll have to send us photos when you do it.

Melissa: Yeah, yeah. I just. The minute I saw that, I was like, oh, this is so me. I could do this one so well. It's been great talking with both of you, hearing about the good that you're doing with your choose kindness and also the progress that it's making.

So do you want to just both leave a final thought or any other thoughts that you wanted to share?

Rebecca: Yeah, I just thought our. One of our slogans on our banners this last month was a little kindness goes a long way. And I just love that thought that just it's something small we can do to help someone else.

And when we're trying to promote kindness, it helps us think about. Think about kindness ourselves and try to be kind people. And I just know that people are. Are the important thing in our life.

Right. The things that the most important thing in this world is are all the people that are around us. And we can just try to do something to lift another person.

And that is a simple thing. And service sometimes is a lot of work, but small things make a big difference.

Ruth: And just to go along with what Rebecca was saying, that it is small things. I know throughout my life, I've had many acts of kindness that people have done for me.

And it is true that you remember those things. You remember how people treat you. You don't always remember what they say, but you do remember how they treat you. And so something that I've noticed, especially with the youth, is trying to teach them how to just look at people and smile and say hi.

It's really hard when you're a teenager to do those things, right, to walk through the school, the door open, and say hi to the person. But it truly is those little acts of kindness that people remember and helps you build connections with others and to build good relationships with others.

And honestly, it is so simple and so small, but it needs a reminder. We need to be able to remind people that choosing kindness is a good thing. And it really does bless your own self, which then blesses others.

And so, yeah, it's great. I'm so glad to be a part of this. I've really grown from serving and being a part of two's kindness.

Melissa: Yeah, that's a great point. I think most people,

if you asked them, they could share with you an act of kindness that had an impact on them. Most of us could come up with a story or maybe even multiple stories.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Melissa: And that right there illustrates what you said, that those small things do make a difference.

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. The research they've done on kindness shows that if. Like that when you. If you see someone do something kind, or if you do something kind, or if someone does something kind to you, all three of those will.

Will help you and produce positive endorphins in your life. And so even watching someone else be kind can bless your life. And so I love that ripple effect. Like we mentioned earlier, like, one kind thing does prompt you to go do something kind to someone else and to feel better.

Melissa: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Rebecca and Ruth. It's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast here today.

Rebecca: Thank you so much.

Ruth: It's been a pleasure.

Rebecca: Yeah, it's nice to meet you. And we love that you're promoting great things that are happening around communities.

Melissa: That was my interview with Rebecca Cardin and Ruth Horsley, the co chairs of Choose Kindness pg. And I'm just so impressed with this nonprofit and all the good things that they are doing within their city.

And I thought that both of them really had some simple and great ideas to share that anyone could use, either officially as a nonprofit or just in any capacity within your family, your neighborhood, or your city to create and promote a culture of kindness and service and caring.

So I'm going to leave links to their website in the show notes and I'm especially going to leave a link to that We've Been Loved service project. I love that idea and I just think that's a great thing.

Any family could go and do and start that within your own neighborhood. So there will be links to all of those in the show notes. And just as a friendly reminder, if you've enjoyed this episode or thought of someone that might like to hear some of these great ideas that Rebecca and Ruth had to share,

please share this episode of the podcast with them. Or as always, I'd love to get five star ratings or reviews, especially on Apple podcasts.

Melissa: That's a great way to help promote.

Melissa: The podcast and help other people find it. Or you can also follow the podcast on social media and the links to those as well are in the show notes.

And as always this week, I hope that you can find a way to do something more to help lift, inspire or make a difference.