I had the lovely opportunity to interview my good friend Matt in the wee hours of a Saturday morning about what's going on in his life, like converting churches, kindness, and fast food chains.
Starting our talk off, I ask Matt about his experience changing churches.
Matt recently started attending our local Catholic church, and with a new perspective on the youth group there, it's quite interesting to hear that unlike many others, such as myself, he finds it to be a large community and not at all to be broken into cliques or factions. This may be a result of the often sunny disposition he has, and a reputation for being nice that he considers "a problem because nobody's scared of the nice guy."
He started an organization about spreading kindness called Kindness is Key. It began when Matt started receiving random, hateful texts and found that responding with positive messages such as, "have a great day," were much more effective than responding with insults.
"There is so much hate in this world but all people need is kindness and happiness," he says, explaining his motives behind starting Kindness is Key. "Those paired with forgiveness and patience can change our world. That's my message."
The organization also includes suicide awareness among teens. Kindness is Key aims to be a support system for teens in need of someone to be there for them. As of now, Matthew is working on pulling together a website for the organization to operate from and is currently making deliveries of nice messages and candy to people's houses every week along with daily texts of encouragement to many people.
"As someone who was in a dark position before, having someone always on your side can really be a life saver," he replied when I asked him about his personal connection to this campaign.
The organization consists of friends that Matthew has recruited through either social media or word of mouth. He has high hopes of it someday becoming global, however, and believes the website will be a tremendous help in fulfilling that dream. We discuss a possible meeting place for the Kindness is Key community, turning the conversation entirely into a Waffle House-themed discussion. It might seem a little irrelevant but it proves that this truly is an organization driven by a group of teenagers passionate about others and are clearly motivated to make the world a better place, one act of kindness at a time.
Matt and Kindness is Key are here to lift each other and the people around them up and into a positive space.
"I want to spread kindness and save lives and honestly change the world. Call it cliche but who says I can't?" he says. Such inspiring words from a very inspiring person.
