During the month of August, Euless-based Dalworth Restoration has once again been busy with its Restoring Kindness campaign.
Dalworth has treated residents and first responders at 13 locations to free coffee, ice cream, pizza, barbecue, seafood, chicken fried steaks and more. The purpose: to encourage others to experience the joy of a positive surprise and then let them choose to do something similar for total strangers.
“What our nation needs is a restoration of kindness,” says Robyn Kent, General Manager of Dalworth Restoration. “We’ve been creating kind gestures over these Dog Days of Summer, and we’re encouraging others to do the very same.”
The need for kindness is nothing new. Kent adds, “I recently reviewed our news releases going back to 2016 and each year our nation has seemed to lose more of its spirit of kindness. This year, with the pressures caused by the pandemic and world events, we offer a better solution: Spread kindness instead, and do something kind for someone else.”
She added that her team was delivering some positivity to help others recognize that there are a lot of kind and caring people, and that is quite simple and easy to do something kind for someone else.
Kent and her team kicked off this year’s generosity on Monday, August 2, delivering free Pokey-O’s Ice Cream Sandwiches to firefighters in both Euless and University Park, a Dallas suburb, because that date was National Ice Cream Sandwich Day.
Euless Mayor Linda Martin is an advocate of the Restoring Kindness campaign. “We are so happy to have Dalworth Restoration as such a great community partner. They support our police and fire departments, and our entire city on a regular basis. We just thank them for taking care of us, and today (August 2) we have some firefighters and administrators, along with our GIS and our IT team that all need some taking care of and loving. So, we’re going to chow down here on some ice cream sandwiches!”
Kent noted that Dalworth’s goal is to have some fun with their displays of kindness, and that firefighters appreciated their cold treats as the temperatures nudged toward 100 degrees. Throughout this month, Dalworth Restoration has reached out across the Dallas-Fort Worth area to touch others with kindness. The company has done their best to restore kindness with:
- Free ice cream sandwiches on August 2 at Pokey-O’s in Dallas
- Free dinners on Tuesday at J. Gilligan’s restaurant in Arlington
- Free ice cream on Tuesday at Marble Slab Creamery in Arlington
- Free pizza on Wednesday from Mama’s Pizza in Arlington
- Free coffee on Friday the 13th at Pax and Beneficia Coffee in Las Colinas
- Free breakfast/lunch on Friday the 13th at Bacons Bistro in Hurst
- Free Ice cream cakes delivered to city hall at Milwaukee Joe’s Ice Cream in Southlake
- More ice cream sandwiches on Thursday, August 19 from Pokey-O’s
- More free coffee on Wednesday, August 18, in Fort Worth
- More free breakfasts on Thursday, August 19, in Dallas
Dalworth Restoration drew its second #RestoringKindness campaign to a close on aug. 27 by:
- Prepaying for customers’ coffee and breakfast tacos at Mas Coffee in Grand Prairie
- Prepaying for customers’ barbecue for lunch at Zavala’s Barbecue in Grand Prairie
- Delivering 600 assorted candy bars and treats to Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital HEB in Bedford so that every employee on campus could enjoy a sweet treat
“You should see the look of astonishment on people’s faces when they learn their coffee, their lunch or ice cream is free. It’s as if they just received a free puppy. We just don’t see as much natural kindness as we used to,” said Kent.
She put kindness into action one more time by driving to Texas Health Resources Hospital HEB in Bedford, where she and her team loaded 600 candy bars onto a cart so that every THR staff member working that day could enjoy a free treat.
The Restoring Kindness program started with humble beginnings and has grown substantially. The first year, Dalworth Restoration delivered cold bottled water to some first responders and ice cream cakes to other, along with paying for admission for strangers to the Fort Worth Zoo.
The second year saw a crew of 10 Dalworth team members converge on an Arlington neighborhood, where they restored a 9/11-themed patriotic mural that had faded over the years on a home’s retaining wall. With the homeowner’s permission and input, the team restored and upgraded the design of the mural, putting a fresh face on artwork that once again became a source of neighborhood pride.
Kent observed, “All throughout summer, we’ve been reaching out to our own team members, customers, vendors and fellow restoration, asking them to do something kind for others. Over the years, we have also visited animal shelters, delivered snacks to assisted living centers, left encouraging post-it notes on parked cars, and donated coloring books to children’s hospitals.
“Kindness can be as simple as opening a door, complimenting someone or just saying ‘hello.’ You can determine how far you want to take kindness. Once you get started, we’ve all learned that kindness is contagious, and you won’t want to stop.”
She adds that the smallest sample of kindness can turn somebody’s day around, whether you yield to someone needing to change lines in traffic or allow someone to move ahead of you at the checkout line. “So much of being kind is very easy to do and there are a lot of free and inexpensive ways to do it.”
“Restoring Kindness” began when a Wisconsin restoration company created the concept in 2015. Dalworth Restoration used its prominent position in national trade associations to promote the program, resulting in over 100 restoration companies across the United States and in Australia now participating.
Kent asks individuals and companies doing something kind to post what they have done on social media with the hashtag of #restoriingKindess.