CLEVELAND, Ohio — The organization “Values-in-Action” has been around for 26 years. Their “Just Be Kind” campaign has impacted almost a million grade school students across the country. But Co-Founder, President and CEO Stuart Muszynski says it’s time to take things a step further.

“We felt that our own community can be a real example of kindness, and why not do it in 2020, which we figured was going to be one of the nastiest years in history because of the upcoming election. Little did we know. In the meantime, COVID broke out and we've seen abundant acts of kindness in our community every single day.”

The idea of “Kindland” was born— encouraging acts of kindness across the greater Cleveland area as a counter to negativity we see every day.

“And we've seen through, through studies and through our own experience that kindness can reverse this negativity, so why not make Cleveland 'Kindland' and become known as the kindness community in the country?” said Muszynski.

Values-in-Action’s National Kindness Ambassador, former Cleveland news anchor and children's book author Denise Dufala says with the pandemic and this current civil rights movement, people want to do their part.

“We're craving this as people to be nice to one another. And we can't be near each other as close as we used to be right now. So the only way to be close to one another and reach out to one another is through acts of kindness,” said Dufala.

Values-in-Action is asking local businesses to take part by creating one kindness project. Grade school students will be their kindness ambassadors and by the end of 2021, they hope to have documented more than 1 million acts of kindness.

“Kindness is taught, the same way the other stuff is taught, right? It's a learned behavior. If we're an example for the next generation through acts of kindness it's only going to teach our kids the right thing to do, how to be kind to one another, how to be inclusive, how to be compassionate. That's what we want and Cleveland is that way. We see it all the time. We just need to promote it,” said Dufala.

On their journey to turn at Cleveland into Kindland, they need your help documenting acts of kindness. If you experience an act of kindness or you witness one, you can get on Twitter,Instagram or Facebook and tell everyone about it using #kindland or #JustBeKind.