We talk to Maya Enista Smith, Executive Director of Born This Way Foundation, about ideas for spreading kindness and showing gratitude virtually, about allowing for a roller coaster of feelings right now and about the “anti-aging” properties of caring for others.

core/paragraph

Maya Enista Smith is a master at finding creative, thoughtful ways to show kindness and gratitude.

She is the Executive Director of <a href="https://bornthisway.foundation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Born This Way Foundation</a>, founded in 2012 by Lady Gaga and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, with the mission of nurturing a kinder, braver world. Not only is kindness literally her job, but Maya is a master of the handwritten thank you note and the thoughtful pep talk, so who better to call for ideas on how to spread kindness virtually during this time we can’t be together?

Born This Way Foundation is working hard to break the stigma around mental health, <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/starbucks-announces-reimagined-mental-health-care-for-u-s-partners/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">as is Starbucks</a>. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and Maya prefaced our conversation with a few reminders for people:

core/list

core/more

“I would never in my wildest dreams have thought we’d be in this situation,” Maya said, from her home in Lafayette, Calif. “But this confluence of events presents us such an unprecedented opportunity to focus on, to fund, to amplify, to support mental health (and) the importance of building a culture where we’re as proactive about building our mental health as we are in caring for our physical health.”

For Maya, maintaining a practice of spreading kindness and sharing gratitude goes hand-in-hand with her physical and mental health.

“There are tangible physical and mental benefits to kindness and gratitude. It slows your heart rate down, it helps you breathe better, it reduces stress and anxiety,” she said. “When I give speeches, I sometimes joke that I’m actually 85 because kindness has anti-aging properties, like, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/201906/kindness-meditation-may-slow-biological-aging" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">on the cellular level</a>.”

Some of Mayas go-to ideas for spreading kindness and gratitude virtually right now:

core/embed

core/separator

starbucks-blocks/story-grid

It’s a wild time, but kindness and gratitude can help - Starbucks Stories

https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2020/05/SBX20200511-Blog-BeKindRewind-Feature.jpg

Stories to inspire and nurture the human spirit

Starbucks Stories

https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2019/01/Photo_TBD-320x411_1-1.jpg

Starbucks Corporation

It’s a wild time, but kindness and gratitude can help

We talk to Maya Enista Smith, Executive Director of Born This Way Foundation, about ideas for spreading kindness and showing gratitude virtually.

https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/kindness-and-gratitude-can-help/

twitter:card

twitter:description

https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2020/05/SBX20200511-Blog-BeKindRewind-Feature-1024x498.jpg

twitter:image

twitter:title

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. – It was a simple note, written on a Post-it note with a marker: “I’m so proud of you! I just want to tell you in case no one has. #YouMatter.”

When Judy Alvarenga wrote those words, she didn’t know about the kindness movement they would eventually spur. She didn’t know that they would result in a community coming together to help each other feel seen, supported and loved. She didn’t know it would ripple around the country and take root in other communities.

When she wrote those words in the fall of 2018, she only knew that four children had recently died by suicide in a two week period – and that the youngest was only 10 years old. And she knew she had to do something. 

core/image

After the deaths, the police in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., looked for connections but found none. The local school district quickly organized a crisis response. The county department of behavioral health mobilized resources. What should have been the excitement and optimism of a new school year, locals remember instead with words like shell-shocked, desperation and horrifying. 

Alvarenga, the store manager of a Starbucks near the schools and a mother of three, knew she couldn’t sit by and do nothing. It wasn’t so long ago that she herself had felt lost and afraid, traumatized by a violent childhood that included bearing witness to the murder of her father. 

“We get to write our own story every single day,” said Alvarenga, now 42, reflecting on her past. “The things that we go through are just temporary and it’s just preparing us for a greater story. I think that our stories, our testimonies, will help others, even though sometimes when you’re in the moment, you don’t believe that.”

After the suicides, Alvarenga started thinking about the little community lending libraries scattered around town. Take a book, leave a book. What if she could do that, but with affirmations? Inspired, Alvarenga put a mailbox inside her store at the end of the counter next to the mobile order pickups. That was when she wrote that first note on a Post-it. Then store partners joined her and also wrote notes of encouragement and left them inside. 

Take a note, leave a note. The idea caught on with customers. Alvarenga provided some fancy paper, and when that ran out, people used whatever they could find. Napkins. Pencils. Stir sticks. Post-it notes. 

“Your mistakes do not define you.”

“Tomorrow needs you.”&nbsp;

“We don’t know the struggles that people have, that surround us every single day,” Alvarenga said. “Our entire community was grieving. We wanted to hand out a little bit of hope.”

Alvarenga and her store partners wore yellow shirts, pins and ribbons to mark suicide awareness. She and her district manager, Bryan Johnson, catered a big school district meeting around mental health. They plastered mental health resources all around the store. 

The mailbox has been up for more than a year and Alvarenga marvels at the effect of all those words. Students and staff who attended local high schools picked up notes for each other. So did parents trying to break the ice with their kids. Alvarenga gave a note to a woman in tears at her store after a divorce and another to a young man about to start gender reassignment surgery. A recent high school graduate saw the mailbox, confided in Alvarenga that she’d been bullied in middle school and posted a picture of the mailbox on Facebook that went viral, bringing in more customers. 

core/gallery

The organizer of a local “kindness rocks” project – where artists decorate rocks with positive messages and hide them around town – saw that Facebook post and asked to use Alvarenga’s store as home base for their painting parties. At a recent meeting, about 115 people showed up.

Alvarenga’s kindness mailbox idea was shared with 12,000 Starbucks field managers at the Leadership Experience in Chicago last September, the company’s largest-ever one-time gathering of employees. Since then, it’s spread throughout Starbucks stores all across the country.

So has energy around an initiative Starbucks announced that same day at the conference – a commitment to help break the sigma around mental health issues through open dialogue and conversations. 

Commitment to supporting mental health

core-embed/youtube

An estimated 1 in 5 people experiences some form of mental illness each year, according to the federal Department of Health and Human services. <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/starbucks-commitment-to-partners-mental-health/">Starbucks recently announced new mental health benefits</a> and resources for partners: a reimagined Employee Assistance Program that will connect them to quality care; training inspired by Mental Health First Aid to help all U.S. and Canada store managers develop the skills to provide initial resources to those experiencing a mental health issue; and free subscriptions to the <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/starbucks-launches-partner-headspace-subscriptions/">meditation app Headspace</a>.

The company is partnering with other organizations committed to helping break the stigma around mental health, including the Born This Way Foundation on&nbsp;<a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/world-kindness-day/">World Kindness Day</a>, and Team Red White &amp; Blue and Team Rubicon on Veterans Day to reaffirm Starbucks’ commitment to our country’s military personnel, their families and their mental health.

In addition, more than 200,000 partners have participated in&nbsp;online <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/update-on-starbucks-ongoing-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-efforts/">Third Place Development Series</a>&nbsp;training, tackling topics like loneliness, vulnerability, courage, and the power of small acts and conversation to strengthen human connection.

Even an action that may seem small can make a profound difference in the life of someone who is struggling, said Dr. Veronica Kelley, director of the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health, which provided resources after the Rancho Cucamonga suicides. “Having one person interact with them to make them feel like they matter is a game changer,” she said. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Alvarenga said that’s the hope behind the mailbox – that each person will feel seen and valued.

The affirmations in the mailbox are ones that Alvarenga herself could have benefited from when she was struggling as a teen, she said. 

“If we can share these messages,” she said, “maybe it can reach someone who needs it.” 

‘She never let me go’

Alvarenga came to the United States in the late 1970s when she was a child – along with her two siblings and their mother – as political refugees fleeing a civil war in El Salvador which would eventually claim an estimated 75,000 lives.

She reconnected with her father, who was already in the U.S., and the family bounced around neighborhoods in Southern California: Buena Park, La Mirada, Anaheim, Compton, East L.A. and Hollywood. It was a violent and restless life, Alvarenga said. She went to seven different high schools before dropping out. 

On Valentine’s Day 1993, when she was 15, her life changed forever. She was at a party, celebrating her half-brother’s first birthday, sitting on a couch with her sister and father. She remembers hearing keys jangling and then seeing a strange man burst through the bedroom door. He shot her father five times. 

The next few years felt like being lost in a desert, Alvarenga said. After her father’s murder, she spiraled out of control and didn’t care where she went, or if she ever came back, she remembers. 

“My mom, she never let my hand go, even though I felt like I was already completely swallowed by the quicksand,” Alvarenga said. “That’s how I picture it, like she just held on to me until I was light enough for her to slowly pull me out.”&nbsp; 

Eventually, Alvarenga became a citizen, earned a GED, started taking psychology classes at a local community college and got her first job, as a barista at a small coffee shop in L.A. She was hired by Starbucks, got married, settled down and had kids. She was promoted to shift supervisor and then store manager. She’ll hit her 20-year anniversary at Starbucks in March. 

Her personal causes are an extension of her heart. She volunteers for organizations that work with teenage mothers and foster kids. She’s taken in a severely abused dog. Her three kids, ages 15, 8 and 4, feed all the neighborhood stray cats.

As a store manager, she believes in giving people second chances and encouraging them, as her mother did for her. When others might see young people who are rough around the edges, she sees an opportunity to mentor kids on persistence and hard work. 

“Growing up, life was not easy for me, and I think that what we endure in childhood, in our teenage years, mold us into being who we are,” Alvarenga said. “Sometimes I think about when I struggled, I wanted someone to help me. And I didn’t always get that. When I started working for Starbucks, I was young, and I had so many things that looking back now, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I wouldn’t have hired myself.’… But someone believed for me. 

“It gets me emotional that I’m in a position to be available to help someone.” 

Be your best when your best is required

John Wooden, the legendary UCLA college basketball coach, preached a pyramid of success on his way to winning 10 national championships. He termed the last building block of his philosophy “Competitive Greatness” – the ability to be at your best when your very best is required. 

What’s the very best required of an anxious community reeling from tragedy? 

What’s the very best response for a country in which suicides are on the rise, an estimated 33 percent from 1999 to 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? 

What’s the very best a worried mother like Alvarenga can do, especially now that her oldest son is a freshman at the same school where one of the children died by suicide last year? 

Alvarenga deals with it the best way she knows how. Like she did more than a year ago, she puts on a smile, walks out into her store lobby, and greets customer after customer after customer, inquiring about a day, asking about school, starting a conversation, offering a hug or a sympathetic ear, passing out an encouraging note and trying to slow down a busy world long enough to make a connection that might change the course of someone’s day, maybe even someone’s life. 

If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or have concerns about someone else who may be, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

The more of the signs below that a person shows, the greater the risk of suicide.

Source: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

How a mailbox in a Starbucks inspires kindness in a Calif. community - Starbucks Stories

https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2020/01/SBX2020110-Rancho-Featured-Image.jpg

How a mailbox in a Starbucks inspires kindness in a Calif. community

After tragedy struck the town of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., Starbucks store manager Judy Alvarenga knew she had to take action.

https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/how-a-mailbox-in-a-starbucks-inspired-kindness/

https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2020/01/SBX2020110-Rancho-Featured-Image-1024x498.jpg

Starbucks and Born This Way Foundation are teaming up to celebrate good deeds and spread kindness for World Kindness Day on Nov. 13.

As late October wildfires fires raged around Maya Enista Smith’s California community, streams of fire trucks and emergency responders raced into town. 

In all the chaos and uncertainty, Smith said it was the small acts of kindness that kept people’s spirits afloat – neighbors helping each other, text messages offering rides and supplies, emails offering displaced families a place to stay, shower or use Wi-Fi.

“It is a state of panic unlike one I’ve ever felt as a parent,” said Smith, executive director of <a href="https://bornthisway.foundation/">Born This Way Foundation</a>. “But I am, today and always, grateful for the big and small acts of kindness around us.”

In a world that sometimes feels afire with divisiveness, apathy, fear and suffering, kindness can fight the flames, Smith said. This is why Starbucks and Born This Way Foundation have teamed up to celebrate World Kindness Day on Wednesday, November 13th. “Taking a day to spread kindness and celebrate the powerful multiplier of good deeds feels especially urgent and important at this moment in time,” Smith said.

“Kindness is transformative. On a bad day, it can give you hope in the form of a much-needed smile from a stranger and on your worst day, kindness can help you stay alive and believe that you can survive your life another day,” Smith said. “We hope to be part of a movement that encourages us to look toward kindness, to act with kindness, and to use kindness not only to survive, but also thrive.&nbsp; The more kindness, the better – on World Kindness Day and always.” 

Born This Way Foundation was founded in 2012 by Lady Gaga and her mother Cynthia Germanotta with the mission of nurturing a kinder, braver world. Partnering with Starbucks, said Smith, makes a lot of sense, given the company’s mission to “inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” 

Smith said she’s visited Starbucks all over the world and kindness is core at every store. Sometimes, the kindness begins before you even go inside. 

At a Starbucks store on a hill overlooking Charleston, West Virginia, there’s a sign affixed to the front door: “You matter.” Mark Mahoney, who manages the store, said he’s given kindness and creating a culture of kindness a lot of thought. 

“In the world we live in, we’re conditioned to be constantly defensive. What I’m learning is that once you retrain your actions and outlook on how to be kind in simple ways, it actually comes very easily,” Mahoney said. “The impact someone can have by one small gesture – holding the door open, asking deeper questions to strangers, or just smiling – can have a profound impact on someone’s day, even if it’s just for a small moment. Partners in stores are set up in an ideal environment for this, and once we realized that, we leaned into those ideas and really started to see incredible things happening.”

On Wednesday, World Kindness Day, Starbucks and Born This Way Foundation are co-hosting community events at six stores in neighborhoods across the country. Step into one of these stores and have a cup of coffee with a local nonprofit organization, a moment of community and maybe even an invitation to take part in a service project right there. Locations and hours (all in local time) are below:

If you can’t join a celebration in person, here are some ideas and inspiration from Starbucks partners and Born This Way Foundation on how to celebrate kindness – on World Kindness Day and everyday – at your local Starbucks, in your community and in your life.

Taking the time to hand write a note, be it a Post-it, a card or a letter, can make a big difference. Corinne Kinder, a store manager in Riverside, Calif., created a wall of notes in her store to remind partners and customers they matter. People write affirmations, draw animals – a customer has even used the wall for a marriage proposal. 

“Customers enjoy reading the messages and take selfies by our wall,” Kinder said. “It also helps my more introverted partners talk to customers. It is helping our store mission of becoming a destination rather than a location of convenience.”

Craig Poland, a store manager in Flower Mound, Texas, created a “kindness corner” in his store for customers and partners to write and distribute positive notes. 

“First and foremost, I have a huge love for Lady Gaga and everything she and her brand stands for. The fact that she is so involved in kindness and love really inspired me to become an extension of her work,” Poland said. “And hearing what other Starbucks store managers have done to create amazing engagement in their communities also inspired me. I believe if we are there to listen to each other’s stories we have the ability to potentially change someone’s entire day.”

A favorite act of kindness among both Born This Way Foundation staff and Starbucks partners is the act of paying it forward by paying it backward – buying coffee for the people in line behind you at the drive thru. “I expectantly watch for their reactions, which range from confusion to gratitude,” Smith said, adding that you never know who might benefit from this random act of kindness. Be it someone visiting their father in hospice or a young mom in need of a kind affirmation, Smith has brightened the days of her unsuspecting neighbours and served as an example for others.&nbsp; “We don’t know the experiences of the people around us,” she said.

“Don’t forget to be kind to yourself,” Smith said. “Lady Gaga said it best at the end of her Enigma show in Las Vegas when she told the crowd, ‘Don’t leave here loving me more, leave here loving yourself more.' She wanted to share the abundance of love and support she felt from the audience that night, not hoard it for herself.” 

Kindness is a habit. “On World Kindness Day, I urge you not to think about kindness as a day-long, transactional event, but instead as a habit with powerful benefits to us individually and collectively. I encourage you to cultivate practices that allow you to give and receive kindness regularly,” Smith said. “In our family, we volunteer with local organizations in the Bay Area, we have an annual Smith Donor Summit where even my 4-year-old makes year-end donations to organizations she cares about (usually puppies), and we spend a lot of time expressing our gratitude to one another and the people around us.” Maya chronicles her family’s (and the foundation’s) kindness on Instagram at @btwfoundation or @mayaBTWF.

Help make kind the new cool.

Work to cultivate a culture of kindness in your work or school community. Research by Born This Way Foundation shows that young people who describe their environments as kind are more likely to be mentally healthy. Humans thrive in kind environments, including schools, workplaces and homes. Every one of us – in our stores and in our communities – contribute to kind environments.

“Our first goal – to make kindness cool – will require all of us, in big and small ways,” Smith said. “We work toward this bold vision by making kindness cool, validating the emotions of young people around the world and eliminating the stigma around mental health.”

Deliver kindness surprises.

Leave a bouquet of flowers on a neighbor’s doorstep. Mail a gift card to someone anonymously. Bake someone their favorite treat and leave it on their desk. They’ll never know where it came from, but you will and you’ll both feel good about it.

Meaningful acts of kindness large and small can begin with questions like: What need can I help someone meet today? How can I alleviate the suffering of another person? What does the world, or my community, need most right now? Smith said Born This Way Foundation defines kindness as an act of service to someone else without the expectation of anything in return. Let’s act in service to those around us. 

Share Kind Stories and Messages.

Be it in person or online, there is power in storytelling and Smith invites you to share about your kind acts with your community. Authentic stories have the potential to teach us how to be compassionate, forgiving, and most of all kind to ourselves and others. We invite you to get started by spreading the word about World Kindness Day, which you can do by downloading sample graphics and social media posts <a href="https://bornthisway.foundation/worldkindnessday/">here</a>.

It’s the little things.

Open the door for someone or give them a compliment. Ask someone how they are and truly listen to the answer. Tell a joke. Say please and thank you. Smile.

“Kindness doesn't have to be a grand gesture,” said Alex Aide, director of programs at Born This Way Foundation. “Just start with one thing for yourself or someone else. Maybe it's letting someone go ahead of you in line somewhere. Maybe it's giving your parents a call just to say, ‘Hi!’ Maybe it's taking some time for yourself to go for a walk without distractions. That's the fun thing about kindness, there's no one, right way to be kind. If you are doing something big or small to help someone, including yourself, have a better day without expecting anything in return, you're nailing it. You have no idea how much it means to the recipient. Maybe they don't think twice about it. But I bet, more times than not, to someone having a bad day or who is just not feeling like themselves lately, it can mean the world.”

It’s also the big things.

While small gestures of kindness go a long way, maybe you want to do more. That’s OK, too.

Jennifer Mccaugherty, who manages a store in Kingston, Ontario in Canada, was inspired by ideas she got from other store managers at the Starbucks <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/top-10-moments-from-starbucks-leadership-experience-in-chicago/">Leadership Experience</a> in Chicago in September.

“Today I start my kindness revolution! I’m so proud to work for a company with kindness and compassion at its very core,” she posted on social media at the end of the conference.

Mccaughterty and the partners at her store, located in a college community, are looking for ways to make sure no one feels alone. They’ve started painting rocks with kind messages and writing kindness cards (they’ve passed out more than 500 cards in the last couple of months). They’re also starting monthly community nights where Starbucks partners can share their passions and hobbies and connect with customers, whether it’s arts and crafts or poetry. 

“We do it because we want to make the world a better place,” Mccaughterty said. “We want to offer kindness to each person that comes into our store, partner and customer.”

What is your favorite act of kindness to give and receive? Post about it on World Kindness Day and use the hashtags #StarbucksxBTWF and #WorldKindnessDay.

On World Kindness Day, make kind the new cool - Starbucks Stories

https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2019/11/SBX20191111-WorldKindnessDay-Feature.jpg

On World Kindness Day, make kind the new cool

Starbucks and Born This Way Foundation are teaming up to celebrate good deeds and spread kindness for World Kindness Day on Nov. 13.

https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/world-kindness-day/

https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2019/11/SBX20191111-WorldKindnessDay-Feature-1024x498.jpg

kindness

kindness - Starbucks Stories

Home

https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2019/01/Starbucks_Logo_Hi-res.jpg

https://stories.starbucks.com/tag/kindness/

English

Every day, across the globe, our partners support the communities in our stores and the neighborhoods we are a part of. From open mic nights to service projects to spreading messages of hope, we are making our communities stronger.

Community

We are rooted in our mission to nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection. We are committed to creating environments where everyone is welcome and belongs. Updated July 2024

Inclusion & Diversity

We believe in creating meaningful opportunities for our partners—investing in their health, well-being and success. Putting them first and creating a culture where everyone is welcome.

Opportunity

People in Coffee

The Starbucks Foundation’s mission is to strengthen humanity by transforming lives across the world, with a focus on enabling community resiliency and prosperity and uplifting communities affected by disaster.

The Starbucks Foundation

Our aspiration is to be people positive—investing in humanity and the well-being of everyone we connect with, from our partners to coffee farmers to the customers in our stores and beyond.

People

Planet

Coffee is at our heart, inspiring our craft and driving innovation—in our drinks, our food, our stores and new ways we bring the Starbucks experience to you wherever you are.

Beverages & Food

From the original third place to the latest kinds of Starbucks stores and ways to get your order to your favorite merchandise and more, we’re all about connecting and meeting you where you are.

Customer Experience

From how you order to how we brew and more, we’re obsessed with finding the newest ways to make things better and easier for our partners and customers.