Share Your Word of Kindness & Gratitude

Earlier this year, Trustee Emily Baer started a Kindness Initiative asking folks to share stories of kindness they encounter in Erie. For the month of November, she has asked to amend that initiative a little to include gratitude.

From Trustee Baer: The power of gratitude is well documented. It stimulates the regions of our brains that regulate stress and produce feelings of pleasure. Similarly, gratitude plays an important role in our community. It’s an integral part of many indigenous cultures. As we enter Native American Heritage Month, I was reading the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. It’s a recitation that sets gratitude as the highest priority. It’s called “The words that come before all else.” In the Anendaga language. The Thanksgiving Address is recited when people come together, to start the school week or before particularly contentious meetings where varying opinions are shared, for example. In the address, the orator gives thanks to fellow people, the earth, water, plants, the Creator, the four winds. And at the end of each section, they say, “now our minds are one” and then they go on to the next section, thanking teachers, the moon, the stars, … and on, again repeating “now our minds are one” at the end of each section. It’s such a beautiful representation of the power and purpose of gratitude: to bring us together on the common ground of our blessings. Indigenous Author, Robin Wall Kimerer, reminds us that “Gratitude incites a cycle of reciprocity” and “Appreciation begets abundance.”

So, for the month of November, I’d like to invite our Erie community to come together, to meet on the common ground of our shared blessings. Tell us who and what you’re grateful for and we’ll share in one another’s delight.

At the bottom of the page is a space to share your story! We hope you will sign up to share your name as well, though if you prefer, these can remain anonymous.

Note: The company providing this software service does third-party monitoring for any inappropriate submissions.