CLEVELAND — Helping a neighbor shovel snow or buying coffee for the customer behind you in the drive-thru line, doing good can not only change your mood, but it can also create a movement.
"An act of kindness can impact three other people and create a pay-it-forward kind of momentum," said Stuart Muszynski, Values in Action Foundation.
To help keep better tabs on those touching moments, the team behind the Kindland campaign developed the “Just Be Kind” app to track all the good deeds that often fly under the radar.
"We have always wanted to make reporting acts of kindness very tangible," said Muszynski.
Molly Killeen was among the first to download the app.
"It's really kind of like a motivating digital space," said Killeen.
Killeen said she also saw it as a way to get more involved in her hometown through volunteering.
"And then encourage others to do the same, but also get inspired by the acts of kindness that other people in the community were doing," said Killeen.
Less than two years since launching the Kindland campaign, those acts of kindness in Northeast Ohio have quickly added up.
"We are now at 35 million and counting," said Muszynski.
The "Just Be Kind" app is expected to help that number grow.
"It can be this online digital space that translates into an actual human experience for everyone in the real world," said Killeen.
Staff and students at Notre Dame College got a nudge from their President, J. Michael Pressimone to download and use the app.
"It kind of sits in the heart of where we are as a mission-driven institution. It's a good look for a college to be kind," said Pressimone.
Notre Dame College joins dozens of other partners like the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, the Red Cross, and our big three health care systems to help make our community a better land.
"Northeast Ohio could be the model for the rest of the country that we can use kindness as a unifying force amidst the divisions we see not only in our community but across the country," said Muszynski.
News 5 just learned that this February, Cleveland and Akron public schools will launch a Kindland curriculum.
There will be lessons and activities promoting kindness for students in grades K-12 to help expand the campaign's reach.
Click here for more information and to download the Just Be Kind app.
