Concerned about divisive issues that have pitted neighbor against neighbor in Scarborough in recent years, as well as the negativity and online attacks seen on local social media sites, three women in town are hoping to bring the community back together through a new kindness initiative.
The Scarborough Kindness Project is the brainchild of Erin Rowan, wife of newly elected Town Councilor Will Rowan. The goal, she said, is to “increase positive community connections in Scarborough through identifying needs and engaging in targeted kindness campaigns.”
This week, she said, “At some level the divisions (in town) are about basic ideological differences around taxes and how municipal funds should be managed. But the bigger problem, as I see it, is that we aren’t in contact with people outside of our regular circle enough to know what challenges others may be facing.”
These days, Erin Rowan said, people are quick to react or get easily fired up about issues, “but we aren’t always so good at sticking together to tackle problems” that impact the whole community.
Others playing a leadership role with the initiative are Katy Foley, who may be best known in town as the spokeswoman for the Dog Owners of Greater Scarborough group, and Kristin Allen, who like the other two, is worried about the negative tone of recent public debate.
“The tensions of this group versus that group have reached an all-time high, and a grave mistrust exists,” Foley told the Current. “If we want to move our town forward, this has to be addressed in a productive way.
“What I hope we can accomplish is for everyone to think twice before they judge others – (to) give others the benefit of the doubt and be willing to hear other points of view in a thoughtful and respectful manner,” she said. “Disagreement is a certainty, but respectful dialogue should also be certain.”
Allen said she’s sick of seeing and reading all of the “negative dialogue, sarcasm and verbal attacks on social media, blogs and other forums. The negativity is abundant and the kindness is either too scarce or not in the spotlight enough.”
While she realizes that “we can’t stop the negativity by some,” she also believes that “we can provide a forum to exercise kindness and respect.”
So far, Rowan said, the Scarborough Kindness Project “is just a hope and a dream.”
However, about a dozen people have expressed interest in getting the kindness program off the ground and she hopes to schedule an initial brainstorming meeting early next week.
“The scope and breadth of the project will depend on whether we can convince the Scarborough community that kindness is worth the effort,” she said.
In addition to the kickoff meeting, she has also started a Facebook page for the Scarborough Kindness Project. It’s an open group, and updates about meetings and project activities will be shared through the page.
Rowan created the page on World Kindness Day, Nov. 13. The day is an annual “24-hour celebration dedicated to paying it forward and focusing on the good,” according to the World Kindness Day website.
Rowan is also hoping to tie a Scarborough Kindness Project event to National Random Acts of Kindness Day, which is Feb. 17, 2016.
Some ideas Rowan, Foley and Allen have already kicked around include the creation of a Community Spotlight to highlight a person or agency in town that demonstrates kindness.
Another idea includes a kindness jar campaign, which would encourage participants to fill a kindness jar each month by adding money “to counter something bad or to pay it forward following a positive experience,” Rowan said.
Other project ideas include 5-minute kindness challenges; activities to pair children and seniors; creating a book-buddies program with the library; identifying volunteer opportunities in town; reaching out to the schools to get children excited about kindness; and starting a guest speaker program.
The Scarborough Kindness Project could also capitalize on community events that already exist, such as SummerFest, WinterFest and others, Erin Rowan said this week.
The kindness group would also like to collaborate with other community service agencies in town, such as Project GRACE, Team Kyle and more.
The overall goal of the kindness initiative, Rowan said, is to counteract the “superficial connections” people often make online and replace it with “deep, meaningful (personal) interactions.”
In all, she said, “We are losing sight of what is most important – human connection – and we desperately need to re-connect.”
The Rowan family, which includes two young daughters, one with Down Syndrome, moved to Scarborough about six years ago, but, Erin Rowan said, “the ideas behind the kindness project have been percolating,” since her oldest daughter was a toddler.
“We have one big rule in our home – be kind. My goal for the kindness project is to end every day with the scales tipped toward kindness, not just in my home, but in my community,” too, Rowan said.
She’s is a trained occupational therapist with a master’s degree from the University of Southern Maine, but these days she’s not working in order to “be more available for my family.”
In addition to the ideas for specific programs and events, Foley also sees the Scarborough Kindness Project as being “a commitment to daily practice by the founders of the group. I believe that kindness is infectious and can be spread through concerted effort.”
Her hope is that “people in the community will first recognize the need for this initiative, (and) then also embrace it as (representing) the kind of town they want to help shape for the future – the kind of town we all want to live in.”
Foley added, “This cannot be a one-time shot in the arm. If we want to truly change the culture of the town and the tone of political discourse, it will take time and a lot of folks willing to wipe the slate clean and start over.”
Allen agreed.
“By participating in the kindness project, I am hopeful we will have the opportunity to proactively bring people together for positive endeavors – acts of kindness and good deeds, both planned and random,” she said.
She also said the goal of the kindness project is to “give kindness more press time. It’s not only the recipients of kind acts who benefit here, it’s everyone.”
Like the other kindness project founders, Allen hopes that the community will react positively to their effort.
“Kindness is free,” she said. “Anyone can give it and everyone welcomes it.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
