21 Days of Kindness
Spartanburg Leaders Issue Community-Wide Kindness Challenge
Following the City’s annual Unity Week, community partners have come together to issue a community-wide Kindness Challenge kicking off February 8, 2021. Each year, the City of Spartanburg’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Week events offer an opportunity to reflect and consider how far we have truly come as a nation and as a community and how far we have yet to go in our pursuit of a world that is more kind, more just, and more fair.
This year, inspired by Dr. King’s notion of a “beloved community” and in understanding the power of kindness to foster the understanding and dialog essential for genuine systemic change, the City along with its partners Mary Black Foundation, Spartanburg County Foundation, and United Way of the Piedmont are issuing a “21 Days of Kindness” challenge to all Spartanburg residents beginning on February 8th.
The group of community organizations are launching the effort with the belief that being kind does not mean simply sitting back and allowing old systems to continue to divide us as a nation, but it is kindness that helps us to consider our neighbor’s perspective with empathy and respect instead of malice and resentment. Kindness alone cannot dismantle the barriers between communities, but a shared, reciprocal kindness can become a vehicle to help each of us recognize our shared humanity in the face of a coarsening civil discourse and disunity in our nation.
To promote this campaign, the City will begin sharing ideas and featuring examples of everyday kindness in our community through social media channels using the #KindSpartanburg tag as well as the City’s website. Beginning February 8th, please visit: cityofspartanburg.org/kindness for more information and updates about the initiative.
The city and its partners challenge you to join us in this effort to demonstrate the power of kindness and to live out the vision and aspirations of Dr. King’s “beloved community.” Please join us!
This press release was written by Alex Moore, Senior Director of Marketing & Communications, United Way of the Piedmont
