JUNEAU POLICE DEPARTMENT
6255 ALAWAY AVENUE JUNEAU, ALASKA 99801
Business (907) 586-0600
Fax (907) 463-4808
Integrity, Courage, Service, Respect
INFORMATION RELEASE
Date: 2016-09-06
From: Lt. Kris Sell
Case or Incident: #N/A
The Juneau Police Department is joining with community partners all across the city for a unique and possibly internationally significant quality of life improvement initiative. JPD would like to make 2017 ?A Year Of Kindness?. The objective is for each Juneau resident to be encouraged to do one kind act a day with one kind act a week directed at someone outside the person?s normal circle of associates. In addition to improving interactions between people, we hope bridges will be built between groups of people of different races, religions, culture, and socio-economic backgrounds.
Early partners with JPD in this effort are Central Council Tlingit and Haida, the Juneau School District, Bartlett Regional Hospital, the City of Juneau, multiple private businesses, and many more. JPD is also recruiting for more partners, actually JPD is recruiting everyone in Juneau.
The International Nonprofit Organization Random Acts of Kindness is also an enthusiastic partner in this endeavor. That group has promised JPD organizers that they will seek national and international support and encouragement for Juneau?s efforts. Random Acts of Kindness will also be sending their own researcher to Juneau in January, 2017, and January, 2018, to collect information to help judge the effectiveness of the effort.
JPD and other Juneau organizations will be also be measuring any impacts by looking at crime, disturbances, suicides, and health care, to name a few areas. JPD hopes the Juneau 2017-A Year of Kindness initiative will be unprecedented in both its scale and the level of measurement conducted. JPD is confident that Juneau is the perfect place to determine if widespread kindness can improve quality of life across a city.
2017-A Year of Kindness is an effort that is far bigger than what JPD and a few partners can manage and sustain for a year. The initiative?s success will rest on ?Kindness Champions? who will create and promote strategies to promote kindness. If you would like to be a ?Kindness Champions? please plan on meeting September 24, 2016, at JPD. The meeting is on a Saturday and will start at 10 in the morning and go until noon. There will be another meeting each month if you can?t make the September meeting.
If you have questions please call Lt. Kris Sell at 500-0646.
All factual allegations contained in this release are based upon preliminary investigation and are subject to change or clarification as the investigation continues. Any charges reported in this release are merely accusations and all persons named in this release are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.