 from Think Tech Hawaii and Journeys. I am the host of Journeys of the Mind and today we are with the wonderful Atina Pasqua from the University of Hawaii in Civic Engagement and also my friend Matthew Goldberg who has written the book Rings of Kindness. Today we're going to start off with Tina and her Journey of the Mind and then hopefully because this is a whole show on kindness go to Matthew and talk about again his book Rings of Kindness. So Atina let's start with you and ask you the question. How did you get to Hawaii and also to the University of Hawaii and become involved with service learning and civic engagement? I know that's a big question or I said actually it's three questions. How did I get to Hawaii? It was, kindness was involved in it. I fell in love with a local guy when I was in graduate school and we decided to get married and so I moved to Hawaii and we've been raising our family here for over 30 years. How I got to this position is faith that there would be a perfect thing that would enter my life through working with higher education, working with students. I was working on a task force to bring service learning to the islands and this was with the University of Hawaii specifically the community colleges and it was decided that they would create a program called service learning and that there would also be an organization called Hawaii Campus Compact which would provide resources and technical assistance to the higher ed institutions to meet their mission of having civically engaged young people. And so I stepped up and I worked on this plan and then wouldn't you know it when the position came open to create the office. I took a leave of absence from my previous job at Honolulu Community College and created the service learning program at the University of Hawaii and then was fortunate enough to be selected as the director of the program and we've gone through different iterations of of the service learning program and of Hawaii Campus Compact. We're now Hawaii Pacific Islands Campus Compact so we incorporate resources that are available to the U.S. territories in the Pacific, American Samoa, Guam, and Saipan as well as we've expanded our work through our service learning program to be civic and community engagement. I think that offers us a broader scope of ways that we can help our community and have expanded from only higher ed to K through higher ed work by being very involved with Youth Service Hawaii with you Carl. So the brief synopsis of 30 years of work. That's a you know that's quite a mouthful and also it talks about your extensive career. So what do you mean by service learning? Because you know this is a whole show really about kindness but what does service learning mean Athena? How do you define it? Well service learning is a teaching pedagogy that integrates or incorporates hands-on service work with nonprofit organizations or government agencies and it allows young people it allows students to of all ages okay not just young but all ages to learn by having hands-on experience helping in the community. So service learning but first foremost is a teaching pedagogy that incorporates reflection and hands-on work in the community to make a difference. Well you know one of the reasons this show is so important is that Athena recently you became president of Youth Service Hawaii and I am also for you know a member of this organization but you became president of Youth Service Hawaii and I'm going to talk about that a little bit more but can you give us first an example of service learning that you know about either from the university level, the high school level, the you know elementary school level, anywhere in the Pacific. Let's just get one example. An example of service learning? Uh-huh. Okay um sure we have um a large program at the University of Hawaii that is in conjunction with um the uh neighborhood of Pololo which is right down the road and with Kapiolani Community College where we have been bringing our students in all different arenas they can be taking a variety of different courses and they would have an opportunity to go into this valley into Pololo to do service learning by working with elementary school kids, the middle school kids or at the high school level to be tutors to help them with accessing technology with teaching some fun classes perhaps hula and just connecting with the community to uh it's it's largely an immigrant population low income so just helping um with the younger folks reaching reaching out to them while they are going through their education process and then bringing that knowledge of the interactions with the with the kids back into the classroom and saying well these are the challenges that I had in tutoring this kid with math and here I am and you know in calculus whatever 1000 whatever the calculus whatever the class is but being able to relate it to how we learn and how we give back and and how we as human beings are there for each other to to uh lift each other up well I mean that's a tremendous example because first you're dealing with children and second you're dealing with children that come from an impoverished area and third you know you're talking about it with your students once they return to the classroom so that's a very good definition now most recently atina in youth service Hawaii you've started you know um a book sharing um as a way to you know talk about not only uh youth service Hawaii but to give people who have written books that may not um have great exposure I mean they're not they're you know they're they're not on the top New York best selling list but they're also uh books that are um you know widely popular um and so can you describe how you came up with this idea well um I enjoy reading and uh talking to people about uh books that I that I've come across and not necessarily bestsellers as you say and supporting especially um people who uh just are speaking about um our you know to our hearts so um I thought that it would be wonderful to bring together uh youth service um and and perhaps individuals um that like Matt uh that have written things uh about um how we uh interact with one another and how we bring kindness into the world and and even um how we might incorporate these these things into mysteries or whatever um whatever create creative venues our minds tend to go to I have um experience with uh a gentleman who I was working with who wanted to write a police mystery you know set set in Hawaii and it was about a detective but the detective was doing good and and so he wanted to take it out of his mind and you know put it down on paper and I it just uh came to me that this would be a wonderful way to expose people to books that they wouldn't normally um be thinking of picking up so it's wonderful that we have authors uh like um Matt Goldberg to to share uh you know to share their words you know words of wisdom and then we can help to spread that to um in any way we can and so if if we can uh if we can do that and if people would like to make um donations to help this kind of idea uh to keep growing um that that's wonderful too so it's been kind of a little bit of a fundraising uh idea but an opportunity to to speak with um with authors and the authors have been so fabulous they've been sharing with the attendees how if you have a book idea how to get started and and that's just been an added bonus for the people that attend the discussions with the authors that's really wonderful I think you're referring to Bonnie Tremort right and the discussion and then also to Eric Gray and his discussion of his baseball books yes this is a perfect segue okay Matt you're on um tell us about your book and maybe read a story from one of your books a story that deals with kindness of all your stories yeah thank you Carl nice to meet you Latina thank you for your nice words and the great things that you're doing uh in the community rings of kindness is a compilation of what came to be 85 true stories of kindness received from others so it started as probably a speech that I was putting together how even through these very challenging times of early pandemic that we are surrounded by acts of kindness every day that aren't often highlighted by the news that's not really the stories that often sell but it shouldn't go unnoticed so I wrote about an experience and I posted on Facebook I didn't think this would be a book uh about a couple that found my wedding ring that got lost around a lake and they posted a sign and I don't know if it was a heroic act of kindness but um I'm not doing justice to my story but these were wonderful people just a mile away from me who I wouldn't have met otherwise but for their act of kindness and I tentatively titled it a ring of kindness and then someone suggested to me that maybe this would make a great book idea I wanted something that would be uplifting maybe the sort of book that I would want to read so I started putting out feelers for uh for stories true stories kindness received but not uh they didn't have to be from strangers or completely random but not people we're closely personally connected with at the time not a family member a spouse it's significant other I'm happy to say that through a mutual friend I think you mentioned him Eric Gray uh he contact contacted Carl who gave me a story titled waves of kindness and the project just kind of kept building and yeah very pleased with how it came out and the wonderful contributions I received from various writers some some who I had the pleasure of meeting through this project that's a you know it's a great story and it's you know a great book so here's what I'm going to ask you first given your first story about the ring how did you get in contact with the people who found your ring because that's kind of unusual because you're you're I assume you're talking about the lake that you walked around yeah yeah in this case so I think I was actually losing weight I've since gained it back and washing my hands 100 times a day like we were all doing in 2020 hopefully we're still doing but it it slipped off my finger and this the ring almost never came out of my finger unless I needed to take it off for a medical procedure or something like that and I more or less gave up on it because I didn't know that I lost it around this particular lake and it was just it was great timing and great fortune that they posted a sign on a tree that surrounded the lake ring found you know with their phone number it just so happened that they themselves were walking their dog as my wife my son and I were walking ours they're right on the other side of the lake and it's not a large body of water we could have talked you know with like co-cans and string they're just across the way and called the number and yeah we met them arrived at their house and they were so delighted so delighted to to present me with my ring which I really really missed and that was it so it was as much good fortune honestly as it was kindness but I there were just the nicest people that I would not have met otherwise and when I first posted the story I said nice people really do abound in my town but that could have stood for any town across the United States okay Matt I'm going to ask you to give us a couple of more stories from your wonderful book rings of kindness sure thank you may I read a story sure of course and okay the story I ended up putting first in the book in act one so to speak is called fresh flowers at vintage vases I never vases vases I'll try vases and it came to me from a woman named Wendy Hammer not only a kind soul but she's a brilliant actress comedian writer and writing coach and she brought other people to the project so here we go fresh flowers and vintage vases in 2015 I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that's a cancer where when people hear about it they're so freaked out they actually say things like oh isn't that the one that is supposed to kill you I am so not kidding about this anyway this very cool woman who was not a close friend but rather a writing colleague that I really admired left fresh flowers in a vintage crystal vase on the second floor doorstep of our Santa Monica apartment the flowers were lovely as was the vase but what really blew me away was the act of sheer kindness I was touched moved to tears strengthened by this gesture I called to let her know that in the midst of medicine and tubes and painkillers her gift of fresh flowers was just the self I needed on the biggest wound I'd ever had in my five decades on the planet this awi called pancreatic cancer so unbelievably sweet for you to think of me sonia but I've got to get your vase back to you yes you do said the voice on the other end of the phone and there was a pause so I can refill it what what do you mean well my husband and I enjoy riding our bikes to the farmers market each week for flowers and I love to collect cool old glassware from estate sales and use them as vases if you leave the vase on the porch we will refill it I was speechless I barely knew this woman was it selfish of me to want more flowers but I had already learned the first gift of cancer let yourself receive so I did as I was told a few days later I opened my front door to more fresh flowers in the same darling container the very next week it happened again and yet again the flowers just kept coming each week a variety of red yellow or multicolored daisies tulips daffodils or wildflowers would magically appear in an equally beautiful jar of vase filling our home with thoughtfulness and love was this chick for real was she robbing a shop a flower shop or frolicking through my neighbor's gardens with cutting shears no nothing that diabolical sonia and her husband were something even more radical they were simply kind the these flowers were vibrant and full of hope which was just what I needed never knowing exactly when they might arrive filled me with anticipation and gratitude each time they did this went on for nearly a year I'm going to say that again in case you missed it a year I didn't know her and her husband all that well but it was official I was in love with both of them how will I ever repay you I ask it simple was her reply you will get better and do this for someone else and she was right that is exactly what came to pass next month I will celebrate seven years since I was diagnosed and six years cancer free when I completed my treatment my oncologist reviewed the scan looked me in the eye and proclaimed wendy you're unremarkable unremarkable oh that's what we call it when the scan has literally nothing to remark on who knew being called unremarkable would be the nicest thing anyone ever said to me I am crying as I write this so grateful for my life and still in all of fresh flowers on the doorstep this ring of kindness that was put into play all those years ago my neighbor Julie is recovering from COVID so just yesterday I put a bunch of purple licey emphasis I hope I pronounced that right and a cut glass vase and delivered them to her porch the tradition continues and that was by wendy hammers well that is a lovely story and a remarkable story to use that term yeah but what I what I want to ask you Matt is tell us kind of the array of different acts of kindness I mean you know yeah I think you you um segment your book by acts so I did I did and I'd like to say there was more of a rhyme of a reason to that but I just wanted a nice flow but there is a quite quite a variety from neighbors from complete strangers someone's first grade teacher that presented him with a book the first book he ever had in his house with a nice note oh in New York subways and subway stations one story was during the horrors of the Holocaust and they really came from all over from Nova Scotia Canada to a story from Queensland Australia so it's really quite a variety some happened in the workplace in the neighborhood in schools through community organizations community service organizations yeah I was very pleased and one thing that came to mind to me I think the lesson is maybe there are several and I I have little quotes some from famous people some from heading to the chapters but to me it all starts with empathy and putting ourselves in the position of others whether we knew these people before they could be our brothers or sisters or parents or close friends and the acts are just as important feel just as good for the giver as they do for the recipient and sometimes they also create a culture of kindness and ripple effects and one of the questions I asked that that came from writing the book I didn't really ask it beforehand if we knew the effect of our acts of kindness and every story was written from the point of view of the recipient or maybe a witness to an act if we knew how powerful these were through the recipients wouldn't we be performing even more of them and often we don't even have to go that far out of our way to do so and really give someone you know that spiritual lift that that we all could use from time to time you know Matt Matthew I one of the things that you know sparked my interest is okay let's let's hear about the subway story okay the New York subway story I mean you don't have to read it but you can just give a overview or you can read it at a time I don't know I don't know if there is time I don't want to monopolize but I could see if I could stick in it but well what I'll tell you more generally Carl I know one of the stories was a gentleman New York so he's a filling guy like me John Childress uh he he fell on the stairs leading to the subway in inclement weather and three total strangers just took absolutely good you know care of him during that situation came to him made sure he had his belongings you know made call to emergency services you know stood with him as he waited for the ambulance I may not be doing total justice two other stories one was a woman also an actress now in the alley area she was a student at the time and she was you know attacked on the subway and was obviously very very distraught and an older gentleman kind of came over and took her by the arm walked with her all the way to her school to make sure she was okay and she was always she was also sweating out a production that she was auditioning for and even you know he even stayed with her assured her you're gonna get the part I just know I just know and that was you know her guardian angel in that moment and she got the part and she's become a very noted actress I believe there was even one more on a New York subway session who configured but we really are surrounded there there are great people out there who want to be of service you know to one another so I'm gonna go back to a Tina now Matthew this is wonderful from your book Rings of Kindness thanks I know you have it behind you I'm just gonna display it I'll see if I can get it to get it in focus who knows Rings of Kindness I don't know if I'm successful there we go okay but Tina how do you I mean do you sometimes talk about kindness in terms of service learning I mean do you is that something that comes up often you know in your discussions with your students whether that be you know I mean your specific students or students in general through the University of Hawaii either you know at the high school level at the college level at the elementary school level in the middle of the Pacific yes we do we do talk about kindness I think with the younger generation they know the phrase random acts of kindness and that ends up happening quite a bit as Matthew had said but we we talk about how the reason why we are here on this planet is to be there for each other and that starts with just being kind it's as simple as that we do discuss it quite a bit but also the we we talk about what is the what is the way that they want to be of service and and be kind so our students often lead into well I'm not good at x y or z but I am good at y and so we try to tell them that well then take your gifts and share them and just be kind and you'll be surprised at how much you get back from the interaction that that you'll have yeah it's it's a very gratifying way to teach with service learning it just helps expand everyone's not only their knowledge but the the way that they see their their role in in humanity yeah and by being by being kind people so yeah we do we do we do talk about that but thanks for thanks for asking even though in education we do we do focus in on what did you learn what did you learn but hopefully they are our students are learning how to be kind to each other and so um Matthew I'm going to turn the question in an opposite end to you is that you know um how do you see having you know being sort of an expert on kindness I mean just because you've seen a lot of people um act out their kind endeavors um you know how do you think that service learning adds to the overall picture of the rings of kindness great question yeah I I think a compliments idea I think volunteerism is I box myself in on that sentence is an act of kindness is and I think service learning uh to me I mean I think the two go hand in hand whenever we have interactions with with one another we learn from them even the not so positive interactions that won't be found yeah in my book or maybe the tita's experience but but we learn from them we're working with them we want I think most people really do want to be a service to one another and sometimes don't really know how if that makes any sense and with my book my book it just shows these stories illustrate that the little things again make such a huge difference and just uplift everyone's spirit so I I think the two ideas it's a great program we're very very compatible well on that note since we've combined both service learning and kindness um I wanted to thank Matthew Goldberg and rings of kindness his wonderful book and a tina pasqua from the the multi-layered a tina pasqua who has been involved in many things um at the University of Hawaii and elsewhere and um just say as a tina so eloquently said um if people would like to contribute to think take hawaii think tech hawaii they could just you know go online and do that and or and or um use service hawaii so um ahui ho thank you very much for watching Journeys of the Mind this is Carl Ackerman host