 Hey everyone, I'm Mayor Betsy Price and welcome to It's Your Fort Worth. Today we're going to talk about a topic that's very important to me, compassion. As children, many of us were taught to remember the Golden Rule, to treat others as we want to be treated. Whether it was at school in a religious service or maybe around your dining table, as kids we heard that theme time and time again. As adults, how often do we practice the Golden Rule? Not enough. When politics, religion, values and beliefs clash, it can be hard to recall, let alone practice, this major code of respect. This happens across the globe, throughout our nation, and sadly, it happens here in our own dear Fort Worth. That's why this past August, City Council and I voted unanimously for a resolution affirming Fort Worth's support for the International Charter for Compassion. With this vote, Fort Worth joins a worldwide network of compassionate communities who share a common purpose to restore compassionate thinking and action in every facet of religious moral and political life. In order to carry out this mission, we established a stewardship group. This group will promote and create a shared vision of enhancing positive civic engagement in our city and focusing on the three pillars of unity, volunteerism and abundance. As the holiday season approaches, a time of reflection, thankfulness and giving, I can't think of a better opportunity to reflect on and discuss our city's commitment to compassion and to this outstanding charter. With that in mind, I've asked the Compassionate Fort Worth Stewardship Group to join me for a discussion here at the beautiful City Life Center of Fort Worth. First we have Rabbi Andrew Bloom of Congregation of Vance Shalang. Welcome Rabbi. Thank you for having me. Glad to have you. Also joining us is Tim Woodie, Lead Pastor at City Life Church. Thank you for sharing your facilities, Tim. Thank you for being here. And Charles Robinson's joining us today, the Associate Pastor at Meadowbrook United Methodist. Charles, thank you for coming and joining us today. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Charles, Tim and Andrew, we really do appreciate your hard work on this Compassionate Charter. I thought we would just go through a few questions about what we're doing and why we're doing it. Rabbi, I thought I'd start with you to kick off the conversation. We keep throwing around the word compassion and as a faith leader, what does compassion mean to you or what do compassion and acts mean to you? Compassion for me comes straight from the Book of Genesis of the Torah of the Bible where it says that each person is created in God's image. Unfortunately in today's society we only look at our image or what other people's image like us is. I think compassion is seeing that light within each person and then meeting them and helping them wherever they are. It's interesting. Each and every one of us knows the great story of Noah's Ark in the turbulence. We live in a time of turbulence and the Ark of today, which we in our group hope to, and I know you in the city hope to enhance, the Ark equals acts of random kindness. I think for Compassionate Fort Worth, under your leadership, we are not only building the Ark through acts of random kindness, but through all acts of kindness, helping the city grow and become more in the light of God, in the light of each person no matter what their belief is or who they are. Do you see the need in a community like Fort Worth to form more compassion and more compassionate acts? Coming from the East Coast, I've been blessed to come here and I see what a compassionate city Fort Worth is. It's really a large city that feels like a small city and thereby people support each other both on the communal, individual and family basis. And I think what we're trying to do under your leadership is expand that. There is definitely a need, always a need for more compassion, but I think the base of this community and this city is so high, thereby we can succeed as a diving board to the next stage. And I'm really appreciative and I thank you very much for asking me to serve on this great community. Well thank you for your hard work on it. And you know that's a challenge for us in a high-growth city is how do we maintain that small-town feel and with that small-town feel comes more compassionate acts because people are more connected to each other. So Tim, in your congregation, do you also see instances within the city where people can exercise simple random kindness and compassionate acts? Absolutely. There are needs all around us. Fort Worth is already a compassionate city. We just want to see that even taken to the next level. So our people and the people that I interact with, they are always looking for, we're always looking for another opportunity. And one of the great things behind the Charter for Compassion and the Compassion at Fort Worth new agenda that we have here is to unite those people, to unite the people that want to display compassion and pull others along with us because as we do that, we can show that we are really a city of abundance and we're a city where we can come together and volunteer and make this a better place to live and do business and to worship and in every area we want the city to be better. But it really goes back to helping people who are less fortunate than ourselves and that's where Compassion comes from. Can you give us some specific ideas how we might accomplish that? Well, absolutely. In fact, one of the things that we are going to be doing as Compassion at Fort Worth is we are looking to recruit hundreds, really, of volunteers to help, simply help people with their taxes to help them to get the refunds that they need. They're needy people in our city whose family income is around $16,000 a year and we can come alongside and we can help and we can be generous with our time and help them to move to the next level for themselves and to give training and support and encouragement and sure it's the random acts here and there that we should all be doing every day. But there are also what I would like to call targeted acts of kindness and that is, that's where we look for opportunities to pull our resources together and the best resource we have is people. People. And so we come together with people and we can accomplish great things. I agree. I think the kids always say pay it forward. And sharing your knowledge with other people, particularly as you mentioned the tax field will be great. They're willing. They can, you know, $16,000, maybe they have a refund for $500 coming in, it cost them $100 to get that refund done. And there are groups helping do that but this will be a great example. Appreciate your support on it. Charles, can you tell me a little bit about why you chose the Meadowbrook area to get involved with us at the Compassionate City? You started out with my faith-based group and I really appreciated that. I did. I appreciate the invitation. I think that through that invitation, I was able to experience the Compassionate City's movement by working with Rabbi Bloom and Pastor Tim and some others like Melinda Veitch and Jack Ernest as well and Father Hasso. And in that experience, you know, I saw the Compassion, just the group meeting, there was a Compassion that sat around that table that I wanted to be a part of. And so, of course, being a Christian, Compassion is all throughout the New Testament and throughout the Bible. As a matter of fact, Jesus talked about having a group of people follow him and he was filled with Compassionate, says. And so that's one of the scriptures that motivates me in trying to be a Disciples Crisis to be filled with Compassion like Jesus for people of all faiths, all religions, all colors, all ethnicities. And you, Pastor, in an older part of Fort Worth, oftentimes there's great need and it's a great opportunity to bring other parts of the city in to see what we have going on in all of Fort Worth. How do you see this group helping expand the efforts in these older, reemerging areas of the city that need help? Well, it's great you asked that. About a month ago, we experienced one of our initial launchings of the Compassionate Fort Worth movement in stop six, where we gathered from all parts of the city in stop six right down the street from Dunbar High School and we picked up trash throughout stop six. And so just seeing the people there unite on that front, I think sparked this movement even more. And we want to take this movement throughout all parts of Fort Worth where there are those who are impoverished and many who are dehumanized and degraded and forgotten in outcasts and communities and we want to show them that, hey, there's compassion and there's love for you too. And there's less hate and less, consequently less violence when people reach out and touch each other. I truly believe that the more tolerant the community, the less violent it is and the police do a better, great job because they don't have to fight other things for us. How would you say a more tolerant United Fort Worth might really look in 10 years? That's a difficult question because there's tension between the two terms themselves between tolerance and unity for someone who has a high tolerance and someone who has a low tolerance. There's just obvious and explicit tension between those two persons. But we're hoping that in our disagreements and in our fellowship that we can find a middle ground and find a place where we can be tolerant and compromise to be tolerant with each other. Stand on a place where we can say, hey, you need this, I want this, let's find a place where we can meet each other's needs and the needs of the community are more important than your needs individually and my needs individually. And so if we can find that middle ground and I think in that we find unity. For example, the Glen Gardens situation with the whiskey distillery being built there and the council voting for that to be built there, many in the community I have heard and read messages that were sent my way don't agree with that distillery being built there. But at this point, I think it's better if we find a way to work with the distillery. How can this distillery benefit the Glen Gardens community? Maybe it may be through a foundation or some sort of endowment that the distillery could provide. But how can we move forward in working together, although we disagree? I agree that's a tough vote, but it's just an example of many tough votes. But education is a big piece that people have not just your school education, but talking to each other and learning about each other. So how do you think citizens, any one of you can get involved at this point and what can they expect and how can we touch them and raise their awareness? I think one of the things we're doing and just to touch on Charles's point, I would hope in 10 years they don't need us. I would hope in 10 years that each community, each neighborhood says you know what, we're inspired, let us have a compassionate neighborhood. And we can do things not only for our neighborhood, but for our neighboring neighborhood. And that is through inspiring people. I think one of the ways we can get involved in this another program we're doing is we are having a communal garden. The communal garden happens to be in my congregation, but we're having beds from the compassionate Fort Worth where anyone who can come out and wants to learn some gardening skills, we will offer the compassionate Fort Worth through the city guide will offer classes for them. Because not everyone is as blessed as we are to have food on our table. And to be able to grow some of their own, I think would be a huge help to those families. And not only that, there are some people who don't have food and we as a group are planning on donating our produce to them. So to give everyone the dignity of being able to have a good meal, the dignity of being able to provide for others, I think is one way we can do this. And we're asking for volunteers to come till the garden. And it doesn't have to be someone from in our community or from in our committee, someone just needs to call one of us or get in touch with us and say you know what, I'd like to learn and we'll be happy to help them do that. And I think that's the way we can be compassionate and to feed people in need as well as teach them a skill for their own benefit and for the benefit of their community. And community gardens are a growing trend across the nation and start with yours and maybe we'll teach them and expand them out into some of our vacant lots in the city and put in more community gardens, which would be great. And we have to engage businesses to be part of this compassionate effort. Yes, yes. And here in downtown where my congregation is located, our building is located, we're interacting with professionals all the time and one of the things that I know a lot of businesses, a lot of professionals are looking for, just opportunities for someone to say here's an opportunity for you to be involved and for you to engage because they want to, they really do. And that's a big part of what Compassionate Fort Worth is about, is about providing the avenues, providing the roads for various people to walk down. But ultimately it's about helping us all to come to this common understanding that we're all God's children and when one person hurts, we all hurt. And I'm sure there's a lot of hurting people. And if we can just help one person at a time, I have a little saying in my congregation we do for one what we wish we could do for all. But as we keep doing that, as we keep doing for one what we wish we could do for all, we're making a difference. And this city is becoming and will become a more compassionate city. We say our little motto is we are building bridges for a more compassionate Fort Worth and that's it. We're looking for a way to build another bridge, build another bridge, build another bridge so that this city can come together and that will be marked by that term compassion. Great. It's a great way to do it. What's next for Compassionate Fort Worth? Well we have two of the programs we mentioned. One is the Garden. One is the Tax Program. We're also planning on having the Martin Luther King Day of Service. I'm sure Charles will explain a little bit more about that and we're planning on having a main faith-based event which is open to say yes there are differences but we're all united in our humanity and that is the big event we're going to have in order to show everyone that doesn't matter who you are, where you come from or what you believe you're accepted, we're compassionate towards you and we want to grow together. But Charles I think can explain more about the MLK Day. Well January 19th we're partnering with the Meals on Wheels and Neighbor for Neighbor initiatives to launch this, I think it's been going on for a while but to participate with the Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Day of Service and that will take place, like I said, January 19th at Broadway Baptist Church and so we're looking forward to that. We're also on Facebook so for those of us who want to connect with us they can connect with Compassionate Fort Worth on Facebook. Exactly and we list our upcoming events and activities on there and that MLK Day of Service looking forward to that and in fact Mayor I know you're going to be speaking at the luncheon that day but that's just one of the events where there's need for more volunteers and right now as we're initiating this movement we are looking for efforts that are already organized to some degree but there's great need for volunteers, that primary resource which is people and what we are doing is we're able to pull those people together and bring them from all parts of the community, all parts of the county and serve together, learn from one another, serve with one another, therefore making this a more compassionate city. And many people are willing to donate their time to volunteer, they just don't have time to set up an organization or to get involved in the hierarchy and so having a group that's already there that can identify needs, you could go and give an hour or you could give several hours and that's the idea that they can come and do whatever. Louisville, Kentucky had better than a hundred thousand people participate in their day of random acts of giving. I'd love to see Fort Worth have that many people at some point. I'd love for us to talk Louisville. I'd love for us to be Louisville, that's right. We can issue that challenge to Mayor Fisher and say we're going to beat you. Well thank you all for joining me, my guests today are Andrew Bloom, Tim Woodie and Charles Robertson. Thank you for your hard work on this issue. Well thank you for your leadership. Thank you. As our stewardship group discussed, there are many areas in our lives and in our city where we can and must express more tolerance and understanding. Friends, I hope you'll join me in this great group of compassionate Fort Worth stewardship in showing more compassion in your everyday thoughts, action and behaviors. In doing so we can foster a community built on respect and equity. We can alleviate the suffering of many citizens and we can create a strong and unified Fort Worth. For more information on compassionate Fort Worth, visit FortWorthTexas.gov. Thanks for watching today. It's a pleasure being with you. I'm Mayor Price and today I'm reminding you it's not just your Fort Worth, it's your compassionate Fort Worth. Well folks as the holidays draw near, so does the end of the year. It's been a fantastic, inspiring and productive year at City Hall. I'm proud to have been a part of so many exciting initiatives. Some of what we've accomplished include the arena vote, thank you everybody, Fit Worth, Blue Zones, Steer Fort Worth, a year of technology, customer service, and fiscal accountability. But 2014 isn't over yet. We've still got some great events in Fort Worth and a calendar that's so full you don't want to miss a single thing. Christmas in the stockyards is Saturday, December the 6th from 12 to 5. Congregation of Voss Shalom's menorah lighting is December the 20th. You can look on their website and find out the time. And if you're looking for a special way to give back this holiday season, check out these organizations for volunteer and donation opportunities. Cowboy Santas, they provide toys for children to low income families during the holiday season. Terrain area food bake, you already know them, they're a great resource for people in need of food. Empowering our community by providing that food and resources to individuals and families. And of course United Way is just beginning to wrap up their campaign. It's a local organization that will point you in any number of directions, including to compassionate Fort Worth to help make a lasting difference in our community. Have a great holiday season and look forward to seeing you soon.