In search of civility, Laguna Beach seeks to be a World Kindness USA City
Laguna Beach City Council members voted this week to work to make the city a little kinder.
They unanimously agreed Tuesday night to adopt a resolution declaring support for World Kindness USA, a nonprofit with a mission to create kinder cities and eventually a kinder world.
Councilman Steve Dicterow recommended the resolution, saying it is coming at a time when Laguna Beach needs it most.
“We have to learn, again, how to talk to each other — how to have discussions, how to have dialogue. We need to have neighbors treat each other better,” Dicterow said during Tuesday’s council meeting. “We, as council members, see neighbors who don’t want to work together [and] are uncivil toward each other.”
By adopting the resolution, the council agreed to allocate $2,000 from the remaining balance in community assistance grant funds to buy “kindness cards” and authorize the city seal to be printed on them.
World Kindness USA supports acts of kindness through the “kindness cards,” which are plastic cards a holder can register online and pass on to someone who performs a kind action.
The previous holder logs the action on the World Kindness USA website. The goal is to collect billions of stories.
Laguna Beach will add World Kindness Day, Nov. 13, to the city’s official calendar and appoint goodwill ambassadors to “identify and support kindness initiatives leading up to World Kindness Day.”
Dicterow offered to take on that role and will encourage other cities to follow in Laguna’s footsteps.
Dicterow said he will continue his mission to make Laguna Beach a more civil place by participating in an anti-bullying round table presented by the Newport Beach Foundation in three weeks.
Laguna will pursue designation as an official World Kindness USA City now that the resolution has been adopted.
“Becoming a World Kindness City, for me, is a piece of a much bigger issue,” Dicterow said. “So it’s great for us to do this, it’s great to move forward, but it’s only a beginning. It’s not an end.”
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