Kindness comeback: Acting like Fred Rogers in his neighborhood and beyond

At a time of partisanship, polarization and rancor, Christmas comes along to smooth the hard edges of our divisions.

Acts of kindness somehow come more naturally this time of year.

But by the time February rolls around, everybody’s grouchy again.

Does kindness have any staying power?

Perhaps because kindness may not come naturally to humans, a growing number of initiatives across Southwestern Pennsylvania and beyond are trying to make that particular virtue more a part of daily life.

“We have to remind ourselves to act that way,” said Rabbi Ron Symons, director of the Center for Loving Kindness at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh.

The center, founded in 2017, carries out its mission by focusing not so much on random acts of kindness but on kindness as a way of life.

“There’s nothing random about the way we live our lives,” Symons said. “We believe in random acts of kindness, and we also believe that we need to be intentional about our kindness.”

The center does that by building relationships among people and communities where there are divisions, fostering conversations about critical issues and, since the October 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Squirrel Hill, helping people heal from trauma, he said.

The guiding principle is that “neighbor is a moral concept, not a geographic term” — a quote from Rabbi Joachim Prinz’s speech at the 1963 March on Washington. Prinz was a Polish-born rabbi who emigrated to the United States in 1937 and later became involved in the American civil rights movement.

In addition to the Center for Loving Kindness, Pittsburgh also is home to the Pittsburgh Kindness Initiative — founded in 2013 as a way to promote World Kindness Day. The organization now hosts regular events designed to encourage “random acts of kindness.”

The good neighbor

In the city where Fred Rogers demonstrated neighborliness from a television studio, Jon Potter of Green Tree is putting legs on the concept.

Potter, 29, founded Pittsburgh Good Deeds, through which he helps people on a pro bono basis and does handyman work for a donation.

The paid work subsidizes his free good deeds, which have earned him glowing coverage on the CBS Evening News’ “On the Road” with Steve Hartman and other media outlets.

Potter, a former paragliding instructor, started his nonprofit in 2015 after seeing repeated requests for help on the Reddit Pittsburgh social media site. He now has his own subreddit (“PittsburghGoodDeeds”) through which he solicits requests for help and volunteer support.

“It’s all about being a good neighbor, just like Fred taught us. There’s no agenda behind it, other than being a good neighbor,” he said.

Requests for help are accepted from anyone who lives within 10 miles of Downtown Pittsburgh, who cannot afford to pay for the work and who needs help with something that Potter can do — everything from pet sitting to car repairs, from moving to snow removal, from tutoring to computer repairs.

Potter went above and beyond the call when he donated a kidney to a stranger named Michael Moore, a dialysis patient from Upper St. Clair. The surgery took place at UPMC Montefiore in August.

Potter said his actions, in addition to earning him praise and news coverage, also attracted some criticism from people who wondered about his motives and his mental health. “I think ‘pathological altruism’ is one of the things they called it,” he said.

Studying kindness

Daniel Fessler, a UCLA anthropology professor and director of the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, calls Potter’s actions “inspiring and remarkable.”

“Obviously, these kinds of actions are beyond the norm … but they’re unusual in their degree, not their kind,” Fessler said. “It’s not the same thing as holding the door open for someone or other small acts performed for the benefit of total strangers.”

Such actions can inspire others to be kind because “kindness is contagious,” he said.

Although Fessler studies people’s propensity for kindness, altruism and cooperation from an evolutionary perspective, the Bedari Kindness Institute includes 27 researchers from multiple disciplines — including psychology, sociology, medicine, business and the arts.

The institute’s first study, published this month in the journal PLOS ONE, found that witnessing “pro-social acts” leads to feelings of elevation, which in turn leads to the performance of more pro-social acts. The emotion of elevation is often accompanied by tears and a feeling of warmth.

“When people see the kind acts … they report being moved, and that mediates their act of generosity,” he said.

Kindness as social contagion is not surprising among humans, even though the species is often defined as self-interested, selfish and even cruel. Compared to other species, humans are remarkably cooperative, Fessler said.

“This time of year, you can’t turn on the TV or a social media feed without some kind of campaign asking you to open your wallet to help total strangers,” he said. “We are extremely kind and cooperative, compared to any other species on the planet.”

Teens respond

As an example of demonstrations of kindness, the typical American high school hallway is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. But at Penn-Trafford High School, students last year were surprised to find Post-It notes with affirmations stuck to their lockers.

The positive quotes from the likes of Helen Keller, Mary Lou Retton and Dr. Robert Schuller were distributed by members of the school’s Acts of Random Kindness Club, which now boasts 40 members.

“It was just a way to spread kindness around the school,” said junior Janine Picklo, 16, of Penn Borough.

She was taking a class called Family Dynamics at the time of the mass shooting — Valentine’s Day 2018 — at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

A substitute teacher for the course suggested forming the ARK Club as a response to the massacre.

After the sub left at the end of the school year, teachers Jennifer Henney and Brooke Hack became the club’s faculty advisers. The club tries to do one project per quarter.

In the first quarter of this school year, the club assembled welcome kits for new students. The kits contain Penn-Trafford Warrior gear for transfer students who may not have anything to wear at pep rallies and sporting events.

In the second quarter, the club raised money for the Westmoreland County Food Bank by collecting donations during lunch in gallon milk jugs decorated as turkeys. In the third quarter, the club plans to place more positive messages on 1,640 lockers.

“Normally, things in the hall don’t always stay up. Somehow they find their way to the floor,” Hack said. “The first year they did the Post-It notes, the kids left them up. The kids liked them.”