[00:00:00] Deanna Kitchen: One thing that was really unique was that as the world navigated, the pandemic growing kindness was growing by leaps and bounds because it was exactly what we were all craving at that time. Was a way to find comfort and solace in the garden, and a way to find a sense of community, a way to give back. A way to spread joy, a way to spread kindness.
[00:00:21] Deanna Kitchen: It was a place that people could belong. It gave people a reason to step outside, and even if we were connecting from a distance, it still gave people this opportunity to connect.
[00:00:36] Deanna Kitchen: Hey, friend. Welcome to the Grand Kindness Podcast. I'm your host, Deanna Kitchen, founder of the Growing Kindness Movement. This is a place where we grow together, learning to root our lives in kindness, connection, and community. If you've ever. Wish the world felt a little softer, a little more neighborly.
[00:00:52] Deanna Kitchen: Or if you're craving stories that remind you that goodness still grows, you're in the right place. Together with our guests, we'll share stories of generosity and community proof that even the smallest acts of kindness from growing and giving cut flowers to everyday acts of care can change lives and connect us in powerful ways.
[00:01:10] Deanna Kitchen: I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started.
[00:01:20] Deanna Kitchen: When we first kicked off this podcast in November, I opened by sharing my story how the grind, kindness mission came to be. Today, I'm here with you again, taking the mic again. It's just me to share more of that journey and more of that story, a little bit more of my heart in it and through it also, especially some really big news about what is coming next for the growing kindness movement for organization and for this community.
[00:01:49] Deanna Kitchen: I'll be honest, this podcast feels a little bit hard, but it also feels a lot hopeful. But before I begin and share more of that with you, I wanna pause and celebrate something really special with you. We just completed our first season of this podcast. We had the privilege of hearing from 10 incredible women, 10 stories of resilience and kindness that have now had a chance to reach across the world.
[00:02:17] Deanna Kitchen: Getting to hear their stories and share them with you has been such a reminder to me that truly no act of kindness is small. It's reminded me that giving freely gives us back more than we ever expect, and it's also really reminded me that every story matters. So thank you. Thank you for being here, for listening and for holding space for these incredible people and their beautiful stories.
[00:02:44] Deanna Kitchen: I really truly believe that one of the kindest things that we can do for another is to just sit with them and listen. Just be there and to truly hear. And I think by doing that, even here today, in a way, you are offering me that beautiful gift and helping kindness grow. So thank you for that. Okay, so speaking of holding space for stories, I, I wanna share more of mine with you today.
[00:03:14] Deanna Kitchen: I'll be honest, I find these podcast episodes where it's just me sharing with you harder probably because the vulnerability that I have to sit in and, and just share my story. But I'm glad for the opportunity to get to do it, and I'm grateful for you being here. To hear it. So I'm reminding myself right now that showing up as we are with what we have is always going to be enough.
[00:03:40] Deanna Kitchen: That vulnerability opens doors to connection and also that because of that it can feel scary to share, share your whole heart. So thank you for holding space with me. For that today. I wanna rewind seven years ago. Seven years ago is when I first launched the Growing Kindness Movement. At that time, I had no idea how much it would feel like raising a child, bringing, growing kindness into the world was like bringing this tiny idea.
[00:04:10] Deanna Kitchen: It was so vulnerable and needy and beautiful, and it was filled with so much potential. When I look back over those seven years, it's wild to me how much bringing this nonprofit organization, bringing this movement into the world, into life has really, for me, paralleled nurturing a newborn, a lot like a brand new parent.
[00:04:35] Deanna Kitchen: I didn't really know what I was doing. But I loved it so much. I loved the community that we were building. The beauty of what happened when we put flowers in people's hands and doors opened and connections were built, the joy that it brought both the people who were receiving and the people who were giving the experience of getting to witness people, putting down their phones and stepping back from screens and stepping into real life into their gardens.
[00:05:07] Deanna Kitchen: Getting to meet their neighbors, getting to give back in simple and powerful ways in their community. It has been nothing short of incredible to get to witness and, and be a part of, and really in a way, you know, how we're wired so that holding a baby releases oxytocin, like the feel good hormone.
[00:05:29] Deanna Kitchen: Actually, it's fun. I just got to talk with Dr. Darvis about that a few episodes back. Well, wildly enough like. Growing kindness when it started out felt like that in so many ways. It was this like brand new, tender, vulnerable, beautiful thing, and I got to hold it and getting to watch it grow felt like that.
[00:05:51] Deanna Kitchen: Like getting to welcome every new team member, every team call that we had, every ambassador kickoff, like it was just. The biggest dose of connection and joy and excitement and energy and hope. It was incredible. It is incredible. Kind of like a newborn. As incredible and beautiful and exhilarating as that was.
[00:06:16] Deanna Kitchen: It was also really exhausting. So a little bit more of the backstory of how growing kindness really kicked off. When we had first started out with a small team in Washington state, it was 30 people. They came to my farm, we had a full day training together and then they launched off into their towns and communities all around the, the Puget Sound of the Pacific Northwest.
[00:06:44] Deanna Kitchen: And that was our first year. And very quickly it became so clear that the need to be able to share the inspiration and share resources and share a sense of team with people belong. Beyond just the Puget Sound was so needed. People were reaching out from all over the US and all over the world. And that was when I made the decision to launch growing Kindness as a formal nonprofit organization.
[00:07:13] Deanna Kitchen: And so when I did that. A little backstory, that was the fall of 2019 when I made that decision that I really wanted to see growing kindness, be able to reach much further than I could reach from our little farm and our community, be able to see it, support, and hopefully inspire people. Not just that I could reach locally, but that we're all across the US and all across the world.
[00:07:36] Deanna Kitchen: And so ironically. In the fall of 2019 when this was, we had also made the decision to try public school for all three of our boys, and so it was during the hours they were at school that I was building the foundation of growing kindness and figuring out how to put all the pieces in place to do that.
[00:07:59] Deanna Kitchen: At the same time, we had made the decision as a family that we were going to fund it. By donating all the proceeds from our Dahlia Tuber sale. So a little more backstory at this that point, I was working on building our small farm as a cut flower farm, and our biggest percentage of revenue came from our Dahlia tuber sales.
[00:08:20] Deanna Kitchen: So we made the decision as a family. In 2020, we would donate all this proceeds from that sales to be able to launch growing kindness officially, to be able to put together the pieces that we needed funding for, like application for 5 0 1 C3 and building a website and all the things. Fast forward to March in 2020, the night before our massive, at least, it was massive to us online tour sale, and that was gonna fund the launch of growing kindness.
[00:08:49] Deanna Kitchen: Just weeks after we had launched our first national team, so we had 75 people on the national team from all across the us. We got a call from our school district that school would be closed indefinitely. We were one county away from ground zero of the pandemic spread in the US and like everyone else, our lives changed overnight.
[00:09:13] Deanna Kitchen: And so it was kind of a haha. Jokes on you try public school that year because we were right back to homeschooling. But then it was also. Without this community and support and structure that we had had pre COVID, and then also I had adjusted my days and schedule to be able to accommodate launching, growing kindness.
[00:09:35] Deanna Kitchen: So the kids would, we'd do homeschool in the mornings. And the kids would, we would listen to endless audio books and ate countless snacks, and they would stand at the table with me and help stamp Dahlia tubers. And then later on, after the sale was complete packed Dahlia tubers. And then once they were in bed, I would stay up until the early hours of morning trying to figure out how to make growing kindness work and, and all the administrative pieces and launch pieces.
[00:10:05] Deanna Kitchen: And so for the next two years, that's kind of just how we navigated and how we functioned. And I mean, I know all of us at that time were trying to juggle all the things, but one thing that was really unique was that as the world navigated, the pandemic growing kindness was growing by leaps and bounds because it was exactly what we were all craving at that time.
[00:10:29] Deanna Kitchen: Was a way to find comfort and solace in the garden and a way to find. A sense of community, a way to give back, a way to spread joy, a way to spread kindness. It was a place that people could belong. It gave people a reason to step outside, and even if we were connecting from a distance, it still gave people this opportunity to connect.
[00:10:52] Deanna Kitchen: As you can see, those early years, like they were so much like raising a newborn, like you don't know what you're doing, you're running on. Adrenaline and caffeine and so little sleep and so much love. Uh, I would take my laptop everywhere with me. I stopped exercising. I just kept telling myself like I could rest later.
[00:11:19] Deanna Kitchen: This season is made possible by Heirloom Roses, our season two sponsor. We're deeply grateful for their generosity that helps carry the growing kindness mission forward and makes these stories possible. So over the next five years, growing kindness kept growing. I've shared this before, and if you've listened to my first, you know, podcast about how the, the movement launched, the really, the only thing that I brought to this was a heart and a ridiculous belief that.
[00:11:49] Deanna Kitchen: It would work and we could make it happen and a really, really deep need for connection myself. I think that has always been one of the things that has been such a driving force in growing kindness is just knowing how powerfully important it is that we have meaningful connection our lives and feeling such a need for it myself.
[00:12:09] Deanna Kitchen: And so I came to it with that, but really not a lot else. I my. Education was an elementary education, so I'd been an elementary school teacher and had just really kind of gotten going with our farm as as a cut flower farm, but I had zero training in nonprofit management or business. I was just learning as I went, which meant of course, making mistakes all along the way, and yet despite that, there were so many incredible successes.
[00:12:43] Deanna Kitchen: We are featured in Country Living Magazine and Better Homes and Gardens. Invited onto a major talk show appeared on some of the most popular podcasts in the us. In that time, our ambassador team grew to include every US state, seven Canadian provinces. Mexico and England, and over the course of that time, we also trained 500 ambassadors and welcome gardeners from every continent.
[00:13:11] Deanna Kitchen: I mean, except Antarctica, of course. But here's the thing, the real beauty, it wasn't in the numbers, it was in the stories. I got to hear from people who were using, growing and giving flowers to navigate through seasons of loss and grief. Families who were walking through illness, but finding healing in the garden, getting to hear from people who were meeting their neighbors for the first time because they were empowered by a simple little bouquet in their hand to walk across the street and make an introduction.
[00:13:45] Deanna Kitchen: I got to hear and still get to hear about kids that are in the garden with their parents and they're just full of joy and excitement as they kept flowers deciding who's gonna get to receive that day's bouquet that impact those stories. That's what mattered. This tiny idea that just the act of freely giving and the this tiny idea has grown into something real, this tiny idea of just.
[00:14:15] Deanna Kitchen: Using what we have to do, what we can to step into our garden and or maybe step onto our patio and a flower pot that we have there, and plant a few seeds and nurture it, and watch it grow in the way that it nurtures us back. And then to be able to use that, then to reach out and nurture someone else and let them know, and they are seen and loved.
[00:14:37] Deanna Kitchen: It's so simple and it's so powerful. This year, well actually, so in December, last year, 2025, we celebrated our sixth year as a 5 0 1 C3 and our seventh year as a nonprofit organization to clarify, we were a year in the process of getting that actual 5 0 1 C3 status. Growing kindness is growing up the same way that a parent's role changes in their child's life as their child grows.
[00:15:09] Deanna Kitchen: My role in growing kindness is changing too. It's not lost on me. The irony, or perhaps the perfect parallel in my life that right now my husband and I are preparing for our oldest son to graduate from high school this spring, and it is the most beautiful and hardest thing to loosen your grip and let them go.
[00:15:34] Deanna Kitchen: But here's the thing, if we don't, they never get to grow up. And grow into who they're meant to be. That's the season of life that growing kindness is in right now. It's no longer a newborn. It's not even toddler. I mean, I, we've definitely stumbled around a lot. It's really more like a teenager now full of potential.
[00:15:58] Deanna Kitchen: So much bigger than one person, and ready for more voices and more hands guiding it. If I were to keep trying to control it and hold it all on my own, it could never become what it's truly meant to be. And so it's time I will be stepping down the end of this month, I think when this podcast airs will be almost to the end of the month.
[00:16:26] Deanna Kitchen: Our volunteer executive director. It was definitely not a title that I picked actually, to be honest. I don't know that I ever even recognized that's what role I was serving in our organization for so long, but it was just a role that needed to be filled, and I filled it every day for the last seven years because.
[00:16:47] Deanna Kitchen: I love this mission and I love this community and I love the beautiful work that together we're doing in the world, but it was never meant to be mine to hold and carry alone forever. It's just that my role moving forward is going to be changing in our organization, and that's because that is what's needed in the seasons of growing Kenneth's life.
[00:17:12] Deanna Kitchen: So I also wanna be clear in sharing, I don't. Or want to sound in any way like. I'm the only one who has been working on growing kindness over these last seven years that couldn't be farther from the truth. Really, truly, from the very first days, from the hours and hours Brittany spent helping divide the Dally tubers that went into the cell to the first growing kindness takes that Katie developed to the first mailing systems that Heather created for our organization too.
[00:17:43] Deanna Kitchen: Just piece after piece after piece, there have been those who have come and poured in mightily to the work that we are doing. It's just that I've always been the one in the director role and kind of carried the day-to-day weight of decision making and ensuring that growing kindness was still going and growing, and, and that's where we're going to be making some shifts.
[00:18:08] Deanna Kitchen: And so we are stepping into a season. Of growth and restructure right now. And it, it feels timely in many ways that it's spring, spring is such a, a season of renewal and regrowth and new life. And, and that is what we're doing with growing kindness right now. So what you can expect to see is that we'll be taking a short pause on launching anything new so that we can really ensure that the foundation.
[00:18:41] Deanna Kitchen: Of our organization is really strong and what you can expect with that is that means that we'll be taking a pause on opening enrollment for our ambassador program. While that's happening, while that pause is happening, we are working on expanding our board. We're building a stronger leadership team and inviting new voices to help carry the mission forward.
[00:19:07] Deanna Kitchen: And again, that's because growing kindness was never meant to be mine. It was truly meant to be ours. And this is where I wanna invite you in. If you have felt like this mission belongs to you and you belong to it, it does. If you have a big heart for our organization, maybe you've walked alongside us for many years.
[00:19:30] Deanna Kitchen: If you bring talent and time and curiosity to the table and want to pour in, I wanna encourage you to apply for the board. Or if you've ever grown a flower given a bouquet. Felt your heart stirred by a story that you've heard here on the podcast followed along, and reshared images and stories on social media.
[00:19:53] Deanna Kitchen: If you've ever had any part in the mission, we need you two right now. Um, we need your voice. We need your input. We need your ideas. We would love for you to fill out a survey, very simple survey. It's three to five minutes. Um, and help us understand what this community and what this movement has meant to you.
[00:20:15] Deanna Kitchen: Your voice truly helps shape what comes next. So we'll link to both of those things, both the board application and the survey in the show notes so that you can get involved in whatever way feels best for you. This next chapter for growing kindness is going to be beautiful. It's not about growing kindness getting smaller.
[00:20:39] Deanna Kitchen: It's about growing kindness, being stronger as an organization. About being steadier. It's about it being carried and led by many hands instead of just one tired pair. And as hard as it's been to come to this point and recognize that this is the season that growing kindness is now in, and this is the next step for me in my role in its life, it has also been equally.
[00:21:11] Deanna Kitchen: Beautiful. And I feel so much peace in this decision and I feel so much hope and excitement for what comes next for growing kindness because there are so many incredible people out there with vision and time and talent that they are ready to give to this mission and help carry it forward. And I know that it is.
[00:21:40] Deanna Kitchen: On the cusp of growing in the most beautiful and exponential ways, and I'm, I'm so excited for that. And I know this, we've proven over these last seven years that kindness grows best when we grow it together, and we are truly just getting started. So in closing today, I wanna share with you something that's been a special part of my story and my journey for a long time.
[00:22:10] Deanna Kitchen: I mentioned earlier that I have a background as an elementary school teacher, and so children's books have always had a special place in my heart. I think they can profoundly and beautifully. Share a message that sometimes we have a hard time expressing. And one story that has been very near and dear to my heart for many years, it's called Miss Rums.
[00:22:36] Deanna Kitchen: It's by Barbara Cooney, C-O-O-N-E-Y. It has been very much a part of my story and really at the heart of the vision for growing kindness and. In my journey personally as well, and I won't read the whole story to you obviously here, but it, it tells about a young girl growing up and each night she sits with her grandfather and her grandfather tells of his adventures and then tells about his home by the sea, where she lives with him, and then has another request for her.
[00:23:10] Deanna Kitchen: So I'm gonna just read you that page. It says in the evening, Alice sat on her grandfather's knee and listened to stories of far away places. When he had finished, Alice would say, when I grow up, I too will go to far away places and when I grow old, I too will live beside the sea. That is all very well.
[00:23:28] Deanna Kitchen: Little Alice, her grandfather said, but there's a third thing you must do. What is that asked Alice, you must do something. To make the world more beautiful said her grandfather and the story unfolds as it unfolds. You read about her something that she did to make the world more beautiful and it was unexpected.
[00:23:49] Deanna Kitchen: I think even to her has to do with pockets full of lupin seats in a little community where she lived and, and she truly made. The world more beautiful. And I think that's a message to us all, and an opportunity and a calling that we all have is how can we make. The world more beautiful. I don't think it means building something impressive.
[00:24:16] Deanna Kitchen: The thing, the thing is, is that in this story, Ms. Ramas, with our pockets full of lupin seeds, as she let those seeds go out along the roadways and in the fields, and all throughout her community, she's sowed something beautiful by letting go. I think that one of the ways that we. Can make the world a more beautiful place is to not hold too tightly to something.
[00:24:40] Deanna Kitchen: I think it means planting generously and trusting that beauty doesn't belong to us. Once it begins growing, it belongs to everyone else. Seven years ago, I planted something small and now I get to look around and see the blooms that I didn't tend. I hear stories that I didn't write. Sea fields blew me that I didn't walk.
[00:25:07] Deanna Kitchen: It's just another reason why I know that this was not mine to hold forever. That I think is the most beautiful thing of, of these things that we hold. So tenderly like a child, like a seed that has so much. Potential to grow up and grow out into the world and carry, carry forward in ways that we can never imagine.
[00:25:31] Deanna Kitchen: But in order for that to happen, we have to be willing to let it go, you know? And the story, Ms. Rufi doesn't hold on tightly to those seeds. She scatters them freely. And I know as my role shifts in our organization and I release the role that I've had for so long. I just have such a deep peace and trust and joy for what growing kindness is becoming because of you.
[00:26:03] Deanna Kitchen: Because growing kindness never was mine. It was always ours together. I'm just grateful for every stem, every story, every quiet act of courage and kindness, the invitation will always remain the same, grow something beautiful, give it away, or. And trust what happens next. Thank you for being here and for believing in this mission and this movement, and for truly.
[00:26:28] Deanna Kitchen: Helping make the world a more beautiful place.
[00:26:36] Deanna Kitchen: Thank you so much for listening to the Growing Kindness Podcast. If today's episode encouraged you, there are a few simple ways to keep growing kindness with us. First, you can join the team. When you become a growing kindness gardener, you link arms with like-minded like-hearted people from all around the world who believe that small acts of kindness really do make a big difference.
[00:26:56] Deanna Kitchen: To learn more or join the team, visit Growing kindness project.org/gardner. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, membership is free. Another way to get involved is to become a donor. The growing kindness movement and this our podcast, are made possible by the generosity of our donors. Kindhearted people who believe just like you, kindness matters.
[00:27:17] Deanna Kitchen: If you'd like to support the movement, visit growing kindness project.org/donning to make a gif and keep kindness blooming. And finally, if this episode touched your heart, would you share it with a friend? It's one of the simplest ways to spread kindness today. I'm so grateful you're here. Until next time, keep growing kindness one at a time.
