Accentuate The Positive

“A-OK! Acts of Kindness Weekend,” which will run Friday, Sept. 9, Saturday, Sept. 10, and Sunday, Sept. 11, will feature projects throughout the community run by a variety of organizations. Those projects will include collecting school supplies, cleaning creeks, trails and banks, working with refugees, helping with children’s games and crafts and much more, providing potential volunteers with a variety of activities to choose from. The events will be open to all as a way for people to remember the day in a positive way.

Betsy Wiggins, a co-founder of WTB, has seen the organization grow from a conversation over coffee to nearly 500 members. Wiggins noted that she was thrilled with the community’s response to the A-OK! Weekend idea. WTB left the creation of project ideas up to organizations who wished to get involved and asked them to post the specific details on their website www.wtb.org. From there, WTB organizers sifted through the suggested projects and posted them to the website as possible community service options for the weekend.

“We had no desire to control the projects people proposed,” she says. “We considered any community project that people set up on their own WikiPage. They’ve been incredibly creative and all different groups have contributed: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, non-profits, it’s easy because there’s no buyin. It’s completely altruistic.”

The idea stems from the central goal of WTB, an organization that came into existence directly following the events of 9/11. Wiggins was concerned with the discrimination against Muslim women that had grown after the 9/11 tragedies, so she called the Islamic Society of Central New York and offered to help.

The offer turned into a chat over coffee with Danya Wellmon, a leader at the masjid (mosque). The conversation quickly grew from two people to 20, and as the participants talked, women from all different religious backgrounds found common ground in their basic values and concerns for their families, their communities and their world.

Between 2001 and now, the organization has multiplied in numbers and power, accomplishing incredible projects along the way, such as raising nearly $8,000 to build a school in Pakistan. The group meets monthly, averaging 50 to 60 members at any given meeting, and plans various projects throughout the year, although this year’s A-OK! Weekend has been long in the making.

In 2010, WTB ran an A-OK! Weekend on Sept. 10 and 11 that organized service projects at four hubs in different sections of the city. This year, the events are spread further throughout the community. Wiggins notes the cornerstone is Kirk Park, where volunteers will be cleaning trails and removing brush from along Onondaga Creek.

Although it’s impossible to predict the turnout given the open nature of the event, Wiggins is hopeful that, through word-of-mouth and publicity in the media, many people in the com munity will come out to help improve where they live, work and play. “We don’t want to control because things will grow on their own,” Wiggins says. “We want them {participants} to experience communities other than where they live. From there, the things people want to support, they will.”

Following the weekend of events, an evaluation will take place so the group can further develop a sustainable model that can be replicated, grown and improved. There is already a sister group in Detroit, WISDOM, that conducted a similar event in 2010 and plans to do a second this year.

The accomplishments of this year’s weekend have yet to occur, yet WTB has already garnered serious media attention. The organization was featured on WCNY-Channel 24 on Sept. 4, has appeared in Oprah magazine and will be in The New York Times for a second time (the first time was in March 2003) on Sunday, Sept. 11, in a special pullout section retrospective of 9/11. The story was published online on Sept. 3. WTB was highlighted as a positive outcome of 9/11 in an otherwise dark piece.

“It’s very gratifying to see a response,” Wiggins says. “For The New York Times to single out WTB, it’s quite humbling. I hope readers will think after reading it, ‘Do we have an interfaith organization? Why not?’ WTB has done a lot and has been recognized for it. We’re not a tea-and-cookies organization. We’ve done some extraordinary things. We raise the money ourselves, do it all ourselves; we don’t just talk about it, we roll up our sleeves and do it.”

The weekend will close with a Service of Remembrance and Hope, an interfaith service at 2 p.m. on Sunday at Hendricks Chapel on the Syracuse University campus. At 5:30 p.m. following the ceremony, everyone will be invited to a memorial ceremony for fire department personnel and first responders as well.

“9/11 was a terrible day in American history,” Wiggins says. “We’re trying to transform the weekend and day into something where it’s more positive in remembrance, like a rainbow after the storm. WTB is a purposeful name. We’re trying to transcend something bad. There are all kinds of boundaries we face in the world. The name doesn’t limit us in any way.”