After months of preparation and emails between MusiCares students and ImpactHK Founder and CEO Jeff Rotmeyer, the time for the Kindness Walk finally arrived!

MusiCares students took the bins of shirts and sneakers which had been donated by SMAHK families to give to the staff at the Guest Room. The donations were very warmly received.

The entire experience was led by Mr. Jeff. He began by talking with the group about how the whole starting point of what ImpactHK does is to spread kindness, develop friendships and build trust. He gave several examples of people who either still are, or had been, homeless – what their current situation is, as well as what events led to them becoming homeless.

Some things we learned:

• #kindnessmatters
• They have existed for 2 years
• They have gotten 200 people off the streets in 2 years
• They have homed 5 people since the beginning of 2020
• They offer three meals every day at the Guest Room
  • They had almost 50 people at lunch on Saturday
• They do a Kindness Walk around 4 times every day
• In addition to meals, the Guest Room offers people
  • A place to gather
  • A way to do laundry
  • A place to take a shower
• ImpactHK also offers
  • Counselling services
  • Yoga classes
  • Other helpful things

MusiCares students had this to say about the experience:

“Today was a very touching, very wonderful, eye opening experience for me. Before, I thought that if we show care for street cleaners and the homeless, they would feel insulted as it would hurt their pride. Now I know that #kindness matters, and that kindness can’t go wrong. That acting kindly, and intrinsicly, and empathetically is all that matters. Now, whenever I walk on the street, I will treat street cleaners/the poor much more differently with confidence! To spread the seeds of love!”

“I learned a lot more about the homeless people in Hong Kong and what I thought was a norm which is now a definitely mean thing to think.”

“I learned that we should love and care for the homeless people everywhere. And I will help other people in the future.”

“This kindness walk has furthered my understanding of how to view the homeless and to treat them with care.”

“This kindness walk was a very new experience to me and I enjoyed it very much. Before this, I had no idea that so many people in Hong Kong needed our help. Giving the homeless people food really made their day and it also made me feel better and happier.”

“Doing the Kindness walk today, and from past kindness walks, helped me better understand what ImpactHK is. As well as this, I was able to see what the conditions were when we got to each person, because the past walks I’ve been on I didn’t see the people at their ‘homes’. Today was also niece to see the other people’s opinion of ImpactHK since none of them had experienced it before.”

“I think it was a very eye opening experience for me and I had lots of fun. I hope I can get to have another chance to help the homeless and offer them a better opportunity.”

“Today, I started to understand more about the homeless and found out that they need more help than I thought. I gave out eggs to the homeless and when I saw the smile on their faces that made me feel very good. I learned that I need to pay more attention to the homeless and be nicer to them. The homeless really need help and I hope they get the help they need.”

“This was an eye-opening experience for me. During this adventure, I learned the importance of kindness, the value of giving love and caring for people. Just a simple act of giving a banana can bring a smile to someone’s face, helping them and spreading joy. Us humans should all be a little more caring, more altruistic and spend some time making somebody’s day just a bit better.”

100% of the required $4000 donation to participate in a kindness walk is used to help the homeless. On average, it costs over $30,000 in real money, in addition to the hours of time and volunteer services, for one person to move through the process from homeless to employed and with a home. We hope that you will continue to donate so that we can wind up giving ImpactHK much more than the required donation!

(Ms Diane is very proud that several of the MusiCares students have already made contributions from their own pocket money!).