A very brief blog to suggest you spend just two minutes doing something else — watching our new video. It shows young girls offering their honest, unscripted, unprompted opinions of our Humanity Club after being in that Humanity Project program for one full year. Check it out! It’s sure to make you smile … and show you more of what the Humanity Project really does.
Garden Of Respect
Doesn't something called a "Garden of Respect" sound like a wonderful place to be? Well, the Humanity Project has created just such a place with lots of help from the kids at Morrow Elementary School ... and vital funding from our friends at Children's Services Council of Broward County. It's a permanent large garden that reminds children daily about the importance -- and the beauty -- of respectful behavior.
The idea came about through our innovative Humanity Club program, where the Humanity Project works with a core group of all-girl student leaders of color. These girls came up with the original design, including a birdbath. With our generous money from Children's Services Council of Broward County, the Humanity Project bought a huge amount of garden plants, decorative items, mulch and more — including that birdbath of course. And rocks. Hundreds of Morrow Elementary students then painted the rocks on the theme of respect and incorporated the decorative rocks into their Garden of Respect.
Just some of the Respect Rocks painted by the students at Morrow Elementary
Everyone at Morrow is so taken with the garden that the school administrators have expanded the plantings beyond the original concept … and decided to keep adding to the garden in the weeks ahead. Already stretching across much of the front of this school, the Garden of Respect will see additional student-painted rocks and more plants soon.
Take a look for yourself at a few more pics. A lovely enduring example of a partnership among a wonderful school, Children's Services Council of Broward County and the Humanity Project. We couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help.
Our Summer School
Some of our summertime Humanity Club student leaders
This is a very busy summer at the Humanity Project!
For the first time in our nearly 14-year history we’re running three full summer programs, each of them through the Broward County Parks & Recreation Department. On Tuesdays, we’re at Boulevard Gardens Community Center with one group of all-girl student leaders. On Wednesdays, we’re at Lafayette Hart Park with a second group of girls. And on Thursdays, the Humanity Project goes to Sunview Park for an all-boy club that’s working on our I Care program.
So rather than take up a lot more time with words just now, let us show you a few more pics you may enjoy!
Our great summer intern, Noel Murray, with one of the girls
We love working with these enthusiastic, very smart girls
The guys of our I Care Club, helping us teach others about #respectontheroads
An engaged group of young men who care
A Great Partner: Our Fund
It’s no secret. Money is the lifeblood of any nonprofit. We wish it weren’t so — but it is. Without money, the Humanity Project can’t work with kids, parents and other adults to inspire respect for the equal value of individuals and the unique value of humanity. We can’t provide our acclaimed antibullying program or our innovative Humanity Club. Our Fund understands this — and recently awarded the Humanity Project and 20 other fine nonprofits generous funding to continue our work.
We are deeply grateful to everyone at Our Fund, including the Board of Directors, the Grant Committee, and the great staff that includes Mark Blaylock and Obed Caballero. But we especially must thank Our Fund’s amazing CEO, David Jobin, who is an admired friend among the South Florida LGBTQ community and beyond. David works tirelessly to make this the most livable place in the United States for the LGBTQ population … and thereby, more enjoyable, more diverse and yes more livable for everyone. Our Fund is the third largest LGBTQ foundation in the country and we thank them for this important recent $10,000 in funding for the Humanity Project’s work.
So let us finish up this online acknowledgement and thank you by showing you something we believe you’ll like. This is a new 2-minute video we recently uploaded to the Humanity Project YouTube channel. It shows unscripted honest thoughts about our Humanity Club by a few of the girls who took part in the program at Morrow Elementary School in North Lauderdale, Florida from September 2018 through June 2019. These girls are future leaders who learned through the Humanity Club about the importance of respect for every human being, regardless of who that person loves, how they dress or anything else. They in turn helped their entire school understand these same lessons … and now will take their knowledge with them to spread among their peers in future years. This is how a community achieves equality. It should make you smile. And should make you appreciate the support of Our Fund all the more. That’s certainly our reaction here at the Humanity Project.
Thank you, Our Fund!! Here’s that video: Watch the new Humanity Project YouTube video!
Goodstock
You know about Woodstock, of course. Let us introduce you to Goodstock!
Exactly 50 years after the original three-day celebration of peace, love and music in the New York State countryside, the Humanity Project will hold our own festival in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It’s also a celebration of peace, love, music — and respect for every human being as well as humanity itself. We’re calling it, “Goodstock.” Or to be precise, “The Humanity Project Presents Goodstock.” The event begins at 2 p.m. on Sunday, August 18, serving as an important fundraiser for our acclaimed free programs. If you’ll be in South Florida then, or can make your way here, please join us!
We’ve already got many bands lined up, offering a diverse assortment of musical styles. With more acts coming on board all the time. The cost will be $24 in advance, which is the same price charged for a three-day ticket to the original Woodstock festival in August 1969. We’ll be setting up a page on Eventbrite soon for you to grab your Goodstock tickets. At the door, guests will pay $30. But whether you buy in advance or day-of, you’ll also get a free drink at the delightful Kelly Brothers Irish Pub, which hosts live music regularly on their stage. They are putting on Goodstock at no charge … and we’re deeply appreciative. (Visit the Kelly Brothers website.) Plus, you’ll be able to buy a t-shirt with our cool Goodstock logo, which you see above.
We anticipate a big turnout, with lots of excellent music and warm relaxed fellowship. As one of our Humanity Project organizers for Goodstock wrote in a social media post, “This is going to be epic!” Thanks, David (and Laura, who sits on our Board of Directors). We’re pretty sure you’re right.
Or maybe we should just say, “Right on!”
Thank You, Friends (& Voters)
We won! The Humanity Project was among three organizations chosen in an online voting contest held by Lucky’s Market. We’re grateful to them — and to you.
This means that starting today anyone who shops at the Lucky’s Market in Plantation, Florida can help our cause, easily and at no extra expense to the shopper. Just bring in your own reusable grocery bags. That’s it. Lucky’s will give you a dime to deposit in our name, ten cents that will be matched by Lucky’s. All the donations by shoppers and Lucky’s for the next three months will then be given to the Humanity Project to support our programs. We can really use these funds … and indeed we will use them wisely and very carefully.
Please consider helping us if you’re located in South Florida. Oh yes, and come to see us on June 29th at the same store between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., when the Humanity Project and the other two organizations will be there to meet you in person.
This wonderful Lucky’s Market program is called Bags for Change. It’s another example of the community spirit that’s an important part of the Lucky’s business model. And it’s just the latest way in which this fine company is there to help us help more kids. Thank you, Lucky’s Market!
Teaching Young Hearts Through The Arts
Morrow Elementary students creating posters about respect-for-all
At Morrow Elementary School, in North Lauderdale, Florida, the Humanity Project is teaching every student what respect for others really means. And the means to that meaning, our tool for teaching, is the arts.
That’s always the key to our acclaimed Humanity Project programs — teaching with play, teaching through the arts. As you see in the collage photo above, our kids this week and last week took part in drawing their own posters focused on respect for every person. Grades K - 5 were involved, from very young children to those just about ready for middle school. That art project is only one of many efforts the Humanity Project is heading up this entire school year at Morrow, even as we visit other schools with our Antibullying Through The Arts program. And continue promoting our I Care program as well, of course.
In the forefront of our work at Morrow is the Humanity Club, nine all-girl student leaders who have been part of our afterschool workshops throughout the school year. These fun but informative sessions taught the girls about respect-for-all, diversity and self-worth. Now our young leaders are helping us bring those ideas to their peers through the art project, through a three-week schoolwide respect contest (first prize: an iPad!) and finally through the construction of a Garden of Respect. (Funding for that garden was provided to the Humanity Project generously by Children’s Services Council of Broward County.)
The Humanity Project believes the best way to reach young hearts, and teach lessons that stick, is through the arts. The results over the nearly 14-year life of our nonprofit suggest that it’s a very good approach indeed.
"Beyond Me" - Finding Love At Humanity's Core
A Personal Blog
by Bob Knotts, Founder of the Humanity Project
This is highly unusual, to say the least. The Humanity Project does not exist to promote the work of me or any other individual. It exists to help others, especially to instill our three core values of respect for the equal value of every individual along with an appreciation of diversity and the need for self-worth. But we’re making an exception here — for a good reason. My new book deals directly with those very topics and others that relate to the Humanity Project’s work as well as my reasons for founding this nonprofit in the first place.
So we hope you may want to read my 25th and latest book: “Beyond Me: Dissecting Ego To Find The Innate Love At Humanity’s Core (A New Psychology As Philosophy).” Here’s a link to the Amazon book page offering “Beyond Me”: Visit the Amazon page for “Beyond Me.”
Let me give you a small sample of this highly unconventional and lengthy book. This is a short section from Chapter 1:
“ … Over the years I noticed that my self-doubts caused me many many many problems in the world. You will read about some of those too. Unhealthy relationships, destructive reactions, irrational judgments that bubbled up from my relentless confusions about Bob, the who and the what of me. I also observed that my problems frequently twisted themselves into problems for other people, from family to friends to colleagues to strangers. Things I said or didn’t say to them, things I did or didn’t do. My obsession with me created most of the damage that I inflicted upon both myself and my fellow human beings. The older I got, the clearer this became to me.
And over the years I noticed that you suffered precisely the same misery, whoever you were. The details didn’t matter much. As best I could surmise after travels on six continents, every other you on the planet also suffered from it. In this way you each were pretty much like me. Meaning it was all ‘me’ nearly all the time for everyone of us. The daily pursuit of immediate self-interest, the anxieties and fears and angers that emerged from our individual doubts, the desperation for outside appreciation, the harm to ourselves and others when the appreciation didn’t come. Every individual at the center of their personal universe.
Oh yes, I concluded, this is human nature. Clearly just the way we are.
Except that it isn’t.”
In a nutshell, this is the essence of “Beyond Me.” Over the course of 600 pages, the book argues that our destructive self-centered ways, our egocentrism, isn’t natural but rather learned — and can be unlearned. And untaught to our children. Instead, “Beyond Me” says, there is an innate core of love in human beings … but not the kind of love most people think about when they hear that word. The book explains in empirically based detail the what, why and how of all this. If you read it, you’ll see what I mean.
You can find another sample to read at this link, something a bit longer: Read the opening pages of “Beyond Me.”
Ultimately, “Beyond Me” is an enormously hopeful view of our humanity, offering new perspectives and new solutions to many of our problems. And much like the Humanity Project itself, the book stresses that each individual is equally valuable — and the human species is uniquely significant. By the time you read the whole book, I feel sure, you are likely to have a different, more optimistic view of yourself, others and our world.
Parents Saving Teens
The daughter? Or the mother? Parents greatly influence their teenager’s driving habits.
A brief post today. Just long enough to tell you about a new podcast you’ll want to hear, especially if you are the parent of a teenage driver. Click here to listen.
Like this blog, it’s called, “Parents Saving Teens” and features insightful discussion from two experts on safe teen driving: Jose Soto from State Farm and Melissa Branca from Florida SADD. The podcast’s focus is on parenting — ways that parents can instill in their young motorists a genuine respect for the dangers posed to their lives and the lives of other people on the roads. Research shows parental driving habits are the largest influence on the driving behavior of teens, who die from auto crashes far more than from any other cause in the United States.
We hope that you’ll take the time to listen carefully to our discussion — and that you’ll pass along the link to friends and family who may benefit as well.
Great Company, Great Neighbors
It's rare to find a major corporation that takes seriously the idea of aiding local communities. Especially a Fortune 500 company that's so well-known it's a household name. But after working with State Farm year in and year out since 2008, we can assure you: This company takes community improvement very seriously indeed. And State Farm invests much money, many volunteers and lots of other resources to make it happen.
We are extremely proud to announce that State Farm has once again renewed its generous sponsorship of the Humanity Project. This 2019 funding will allow us to teach many more teens and parents that respect on the roads means attentive driving. And to show these folks why and how they should practice respectful attentive driving to make everyone safer on the highways.
Our newest resource is “The Humanity Project 4 Parents” — a website with a difference. It’s a 20-minute online workshop that really is a workshop, not just a collection of loosely related web pages. You’ll find it here: Visit www.thp4parents.com … At thp4parents.com, we’ll walk you through a witty interactive step-by-step experience in distracted driving to show why attention to the road is so important when behind the wheel. And we explain to parents why their driving behavior is the biggest influence on the driving habits of their teens. We hope you’ll check it out.
Over the next year, the Humanity Project and State Farm will bring this new online resource to many families. We’ll also continue to use our other safe driving resources from the seven-year-old I Care program, including our books for teens and parents. (You can download those books for free on our website. Click here to visit our teen driver safety page.) Working together with State Farm, the Humanity Project takes a focus on respectful behavior to an arena where respectful behavior often seems in short supply — on our highways. Together, as a team, our organizations will work to inspire respect on the roads in order to reduce crashes, injuries and deaths. Thank you, State Farm! We couldn’t do this without you.
A New Fable: The Tale Of The Two Windows
Copyright © 2019 Robert Spencer Knotts All rights reserved
This is the 12th in a series of original modern fables for parents and other adults, created and copyrighted by Humanity Project Founder, Bob Knotts. They are short, fun, fictional tales that can be shared with older kids to teach important lessons about helping others. Each story also includes a simple moral at the end, as fables have done for centuries. You can find the other fables on our website at this link: Read the first 11 fables. Please enjoy them!
The Tale of the Two Windows
A fable by
Robert Spencer Knotts
Look!
Two windows.
In different rooms.
Both above the playground.
With children outdoors, many laughters.
Together they joyful play.
Or maybe not.
Most curious …
Look!
Oh yes, yes, oh yes yes yes yes yes. This was a scene most indeed curious to see, this was yes indeed.
Waldo had seen this curiosity indeed now for some many months or more. And each time Waldo saw, oh yes, the curiosity caught his breath up in some snort of surprisement yet again.
Two windows. Different rooms, yes, same scene below.
Or maybe not.
Hmmmmm …
You see, Waldo’s curious seeings started something like this, yes, just exactly like this those seeings began. Because Waldo woke up on one extrashiny morning as the sun in narrow lightslivers slipped between his slatted blinds, all the new day’s brightlight filtering inside among the slats to poke Waldo awake warmly on both his sleeping eyelids.
Despite this distinctly sunwarmed wakening, Waldo soon felt distinctly unsunny.
Scowling and scratching the scruffy mornstubble of his beard, he pulled a thin white cord to raise the slatted blinds of the bedroom window. Peering squinteyed through the sunwarmth, Waldo peeked down at a playground mostly unsunny to see, oh yes a playscene below quite plainly playless.
Oh no, oh yes yes indeed.
The unplaying children smiled little, smiled hardly at all. Quite listless, quite playless, five boys tossed a ball. Four girls just ran round in a small silly ring. Three kids more found some sour song to sing. Two teachers, it seemed, were both bored to tears. And one lost lonely child sat huddled by fears.
Shaking his scowl and scraping his scratch, Waldo unwelcomed the long day ahead – yes the endless workingday at a workingplace not much unlike that playground below him. All the playless hours to come in his unfun office cubicle, with Waldo himself all fullup with feelings quite listless and bored quite to tears. Unwelcome thoughts indeed as Waldo walked a few short steps down the short narrow hallway toward his short kitchen for coffee. Espresso, short.
And then, well, it happened.
Yes, this was when Waldo curiously peeked curiously through the round window in the square kitchen wall. Peeked down at that same playground he’d peeked only one short moment ago, peeked first now then peered next until both his scowl and his scratch had nearly fallen off his face.
He saw five beaming boys, so strong, playing catch. Four girls raced round in a short footrace match. Three choirkids practiced some sweet ancient song. Two teachers both cried from laughing too long. And that boy? He hunched over a big frog that he’d found, a frog hopping happily through that sunwarmed playground.
Hmmmmm …
Two windows. Different rooms, no yes, same scene below.
Or maybe not.
Same ball yes, same running path yes. Same kids, same teachers too. All, all, all, all just exactly the same through this window, then through that.
But then, no, of course the same not at all.
First unhappy below, then happy.
First joyless children, then joyful.
How could just the same all suddenly seem just so different?
Yes, even his hearings had so changed from one window to the next with one same sound sounding so sourly through this, so sweetly through that. Yes, just the same child soundings separated only by short seconds and short footsteps of floor.
Waldo sat down with his coffee, most indeed curiously confused. And he thought back on what had come to him through the two windows.
Unhappy, then happy. Joyless, then joyful.
How curious yes, Waldo wondered during some coffeesipping and then some soapshowering as he prepared for work. All all so curious, yes, it seemed all so curious indeed as Waldo somehow found himself with no scowl at all now, no scratch at all either. And then undreading the long day ahead, he soon hustled off to his workingplace through the sunwarmth outside.
And so things went on for some many months or more. First seeing this, then seeing that outside his two windows. Hearing sourly hearings here, followed by sweetly hearings there. Not always only playground children either, but windowseeings and windowhearings of rainstorms and roadtraffic, of songbirds and spanielwalkers.
Each time both scenes outside the two windows just exactly the same.
But each time each scene outside the two windows just exactly as different as each time before.
Here unhappy, there happy.
Here joyless.
There joyful.
Day after day after day, his apartment’s two windows revealed two worlds to Waldo. Day after day after day, Waldo never could decide which of these two worlds was true, which world real.
Was it all a place of sadness down below him, grim and grimacing, everyone scowling and scratching to endure the endless unplayful hours? Or was it a place of energies and enthusiasms, with songsweet laughter bubbling effervescent through roadtraffic and rainstorms, all playful to cheer the songbirds and spanielwalkers alike?
Once himself outdoors down below the two windows, Waldo could never decide which was what. Day after day after day Waldo walked down the walk beside the roadtraffic, through the rainstorms, passing beneath the songbirds and passing past the spanielwalkers with Waldo himself all fullup of feelings indeed most curious. And mostly quite confused. Even his cubicled workingplace seemed different now somehow – but why, and how?
The which and the what, the why and the how of it all seemed ever as muddled as ever before.
And then, well, it happened.
Because one day after one day and another day, Waldo found one most curious wondering among the many wonders that wound through Waldo’s own head. Yes, one day Waldo himself snorted in surprisement over this most curious wonder: “Maybe both the unhappy and the happy, yes, maybe both were both always there. On the playground, in the rainstorms and the roadtraffic and all the rest. Joyless and joyful both always both just as real! Hmmmm … I wonder why I never noticed before?”
The why and the how and the which and the what of it all, Waldo never could quite explain. But instantly he just knew it was all so. And Waldo would never let himself unknow all the two windows had taught him for some many months or more.
Yes, Waldo always had found just what he wanted to find below a windowpane. No, it was no difference below now making those two windowscenes unsame. He could find the world scowling, much like Waldo’s own scowls. Uncuriously all playless with soursongs sounding like howls. Or he could find the world playful with sweetsongs of joys. Curiously no scowlseeings to see with no hearings of noise.
Playless and sour.
Or playful and sweet.
Waldo decided this hour by hour when up looking out windows or down walking the street.
He could hear it all just as noise or could hear it just as all song – and not one of his hearings really was wrong. Just the same with his seeings, both unhappy and happy were real there outside. But which seeings he saw there he’d somehow decide.
A snort of surprisement seems a wise way to react when two different windows show two quite different facts.
Yes, all joyful the play there! Or no, maybe not.
People can only discover outside them, yes, the things inside them they've already got.
Moral: The world always has both good and bad but we decide which one most influences our life.
Yay For Loud Sisters!
They call it, “Loud Sisters.” We call it … cool!
And we are thrilled to announce a new partnership with this wonderful company, which donates a hefty percentage of sales dollars to charity. Nonprofits that, yes, now include the Humanity Project.
See that design in the pic above? That’s the first original design to benefit us. It’s now available on a wide range of shirts through the Loud Sisters Shop: Click here for the Loud Sisters stardust page. You also can learn more about Loud Sisters and find their many other designs on both Facebook (click to visit the Loud Sisters Facebook page) and Instagram (click to visit the Loud Sisters Instagram page).
How cool is that? An awesome reminder that everyone is, well, awesome!
Molly Seabrook is the creative and socially conscious entrepreneur who founded and runs Loud Sisters — an amazing woman of many talents who has lived all over the world, including China and Australia. Now based in North Carolina, Molly and her company put out inspiring original designs that promote equal rights. Gender equality is a special concern of Loud Sisters, as it is here at the Humanity Project. Also notice the rainbow cleverly worked into the Loud Sisters stardust design, a nod to the LGBTQ community that the Humanity Project supports actively. We think Loud Sisters and the Humanity Project are a natural partnership. One more thing worth knowing about the new Loud Sisters design above, “We are all stardust inside.” It’s based on an original color illustration created by one member of the Humanity Project’s all-girl student leader team, the Humanity Club. So we must offer a shoutout to Alexis, a very bright 5th grade student who came up with the concept. Our Humanity Club program teaches children that every human being is made mostly of stardust, something science knows to be true. Elements in our bodies such as carbon, iron and oxygen can’t be made any other way than during the extreme process of fusion within stars. That fact inspires children to understand every human being is equally valuable.
And now it’s also inspired Loud Sisters to help the Humanity Project help more kids by providing much-needed new funding. A big thank you to Molly and Loud Sisters! We are very grateful …
