1. How do you define community? What does community mean to you?
Our definition of community is a group of individuals with diverse perspectives, various social connections, and shared goals who, in spite of any differences, unite for the common good. Therefore, what community means to us is being able to support each other, to be kind to each other, and to rely on each other no matter our differences. We believe a kind community is a thriving community
2. How is your definition of community present in your life?
Every day we witness or read about generous C-K residents, businesses and organizations who extend their caring hearts and helping hands to others in our community. Currently, we are witnessing a large spike in acts of kindness during this unprecedented time. It’s situations like this one that either make or break the strength of a community. Chatham-Kent residents have proven time and time again just how strong we are when we band together for the safety, health and well-being of all.
3. Tell us about your initiative. What are you hoping to accomplish with our community?
We believe kindness can be a powerful remedy especially in today’s world where fear and hatred attempt to infect society. We just need to keep injecting it in our communities. If videos, advertisements and books can go viral then so can kindness. Therefore, the main goal of our initiative is to simply inspire kindness throughout the community and with the community’s helping hands, we hope it will spread like wildfire. We do so by igniting acts of kindness through various methods and also providing tools/ideas to C-K residents to ignite their own acts of kindness.
4. Can you tell us your why? How did this all get started?
We have always enjoyed lending a helping hand to others both in our personal and professional lives. For the past few years, we have discussed how we can transform this passion for assisting others into something bigger that serves a wider audience. We launched Sparck in December of 2019 with our Kindvelope project. Kindvelopes are envelopes that are sent in pairs to businesses and they contain gift cards from that business. A customer will receive both Kindevelopes from an employee and will keep one for themselves. They will then ignite their own act of kindness by providing the second Kindvelope to another random customer of their choice. Kindvelopes are also individually dropped off in public locations for residents to discover. What we love about this project is that we have no idea who will receive these Kindvelopes which is the point of it. Kindness should never discriminate.
5. Something you want us to know about your work/initiative?
We may have started this initiative but it really encompasses all of Chatham-Kent. Therefore, we are encouraging residents to follow us on Facebook and Instagram as we take this journey through kindness together.
6. If you could dream – where does your work/initiative go?
We want to continue with our Kindvelope project and elevate it with creative ways of disbursing them to C-K residents. We’re also opening the door to potential connections and collaborations with other non-profit organizations and small businesses to further assess the needs of our community. We would love to be able to fill another need in our community.