It was in the not-too-distant pandemic past, in the days of Zoom lectures and distance learning, that UC Berkeley Professor Alan Ross would take daily long walks through the Berkeley Hills to help relieve some of the stay-at-home stress.
It was on one of those walks that Ross came across a little girl behind a little stand.
It was not the classic scene of a young person selling lemonade. For one thing, the girl had cookies on the table. More important to Ross, however, was the fact she wasn't selling them.
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"I realized the cookies were free," Ross said. "Here during this dark time, she was doing her part to cheer people up and I thought, 'I want to give her an award.'"
Now, an award for kindness was something that Ross had been thinking about for a while but this little girl gave him the inspiration to move forward.
With the help of a long-time friend, Terri Chytrowski, they came up with the Chris Kindness Award: a monthly $1,000 award given out to someone demonstrating kindness in the city of Berkeley. People in the community are asked to nominate those they feel are worthy of the award, Ross and Chytrowski select three finalists, and the public then votes on who the winner will be.
The latest recipient is Berkeley resident Bernie Peyton. Peyton is a world-renowned origami artist who, every Thursday, volunteers to teach origami to young patients at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland.
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"We want to reward people who are doing things that inspire others," Chytrowski said.
Inspiring others is just what Ross and Chytrowski say Chris Walton, the man who the award is named after, was all about.
"He was the kindest person I've ever met," Ross said.
Walton was a preschool teacher to both Ross and Chytowski's children when they were young, and though Walton died a decade ago, they still think of him to this day.
"His kindness, it just quietly radiated," Chytowski said. "He had a different vibe about him that was extra special."
Peyton is the third recipient of the Christ Kindness Award. It previously went to a teacher who had gone above and beyond to befriend a student with special needs, and a volunteer and advocate for the homeless.
It is Ross and Chytrowski's hope that by rewarding past good deeds they will inspire new ones and that by getting people to talk more about kindness they will start acting kinder.
It has already happened to them.
