From one act of kindness to a worldwide movement

The blurry face

The act of kindness was captured by a Ring Doorbell camera, and a local news station aired the story, that then went viral. The face of the woman was blurred out in the segment since her identity was then unknown. Kevin later found the young woman, Brooke Dubs, through a Facebook search and was struck by her humility when he reached out to her. Brooke’s comment “I’m just the blurry face” struck a chord.

No longer “just the blurry face”

A quest to ensure Brooke received the public recognition she deserved became the adventure of a lifetime that ultimately inspired Kevin to form Kindness Worldwide with a vision “to create a culture of kindness in communities throughout the world.” When it launched on November 9, 2023, Brooke Dubs was publicly recognized and became no longer “just the blurry face.”

A parallel path

Meanwhile, film producer, philanthropist and serial entrepreneur Peter Samuelson had been teaching classes in kindness and pay-it-forward to teenage foster youth since 2012. Founder of multiple nonprofit organizations including First Star, which features academies for foster youth grades 9 through 12, on university campuses across the US and UK, Peter had designed and taught curricula emphasizing that giving is the noblest instinct of a human being. He witnessed firsthand how those whom life had otherwise given a raw deal had found meaning, purpose and self-esteem by helping others.

In Peter’s words

In our First Star Academies — on university campuses for high-school-aged foster youth across the US and the UK — I designed a two-class empathy curriculum. I tell our Scholars, street-hardened though most are through abuse and neglect, that giving is the highest and noblest instinct of a human being: it lifts us up, and beyond anything else, it makes the world turn every day.

I start by asking why, if Darwin was right and the world is a ruthless jungle where only the fittest survive, anyone would ever be kind — why a person passing someone asleep on the sidewalk would quietly slip a five-dollar bill under their arm. We define the Golden Rule — the sense of equity and justice found in the scriptures of every one of the world’s 170 religions — and then ask, “But is it only religious?” We parse the Second Law of Thermodynamics: in any closed system — an engine, a garden, a family, a city, a planet — if energy is not applied, entropy drives it toward chaos. The engine seizes if you don’t oil it; the garden fills with weeds; the city is overrun. Generosity is the energy we apply.

Then we go from theory to practice. We tell each Scholar that a donor has anonymously put up the money for them to give away $200. The rules are strict: you can’t give it to yourself, and you can’t trade it back and forth. One student wrote, “It takes $70 at the humane shelter to stop them killing a stray dog, so I can save three dogs — because the last time I was there, I looked into the eyes of a puppy that had been badly beaten, and I saw my own eyes, because I was badly beaten too.”

And our stubborn, wonderful Karl wrote, “I’m giving $200 to this Academy, because after I was expelled I was given a second chance and let back in, and nobody ever gave me a second chance before that.” We told Karl that benefited him personally — against the rules. So he rewrote it: “The rules won’t let me give it to my own Academy, so I’m giving it to First Star New Jersey.” We sent the check, and sixty students there each wrote Karl a thank-you note. Karl became our class president.

I realized that ROK is not just a wonderful program for teenage foster kids — it is for all of us. Here we go!

Building the bridge

Helping people swim the river is great, but what if we built a bridge?

The 2000 film Pay It Forward planted a seed in both men that a contagion of kindness need not be fiction but could very well become reality given the right circumstances and a well-planned, coordinated approach with the right people. The podcaster Steve Ramona introduced Kevin and Peter in January 2026. ROK is the platform to deliver their shared vision for kindness that changes the world.

Kindness, democratized

The launch of ROK coincides with the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It democratizes kindness in its purest form. Whether affluent or struggling with little means, a celebrity face known by all or “just a blurry face” known by few, ALL are celebrated through ROK as Champions of Kindness: seen, recognized and celebrated for their acts of kindness, big and small.