If gravity is the force that pulls us down, then kindness is the force that pulls us up, Values-in-Action founder, CEO and President Stuart Muszynski said in welcoming 500 dinner guests to Values-in-Action\u2019s Values Matter Awards Dinner on June 10 at Landerhaven in Mayfield Heights.<\/p>\n
Muszynski, who with his wife, Susan, founded Values-in-Action in 2012 as a spinoff from their Project Love Remember the Children Foundation, chose as the evening\u2019s theme \u201cDefying Gravity,\u201d based on the song from the musical, \u201cWicked,\u201d which pulsated in post-dinner videos introducing five Values-in-Action 2026 award recipients.<\/p>\n
Muszynski, a congregant of Oheb Zedek Cedar Sinai Synagogue in Lyndhurst, compared kindness to pushing a boulder up a hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is carrying a weight,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, be the person. Be that difference. Let\u2019s create a United States of Kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Celebrated with the 2026 Rescuer of Humanity Award, Jonathan Ornstein, CEO of the Jewish Community Centre in Krakow, Poland, was that person, introduced by Jewish Federation of Cleveland board member Suellen Kadis as the \u201cright man at the right time in the right place doing all the right things.\u201d<\/p>\n
JCC Krakow has led the resettlement of 500,000 Ukrainians who fled their country following the Russian invasion in 2022, helping house, feed and clothe them, providing trauma care, career training and language classes. Ninety-nine percent are non-Jews.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen war broke out in Ukraine, he felt responsible,\u201d Kadis said. \u201cThere was no one to help refugees.\u201d<\/p>\n
That he was Jewish mattered because unlike neighboring Europeans\u2019 post-Holocaust response, Ornstein said he wanted the strangers to feel welcome in his adopted country. A native New Yorker, Ornstein immigrated to Israel in 1994, served in the Israel Defense Forces, and moved to Poland in 2001.<\/p>\n
That Krakow is but 40 miles from Auschwitz mattered, too, Ornstein said in his acceptance speech. He said that of the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, 3.1 million were Polish.<\/p>\n
\u201cNinety percent of my community was murdered,\u201d he said. \u201cLook around. That percentage means that of 90% of the people in this room, only four tables would be left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which led him to pose another question: how do you kill 6 million people?<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you do that,\u201d he asked. \u201cKilling one person is hard. One bomb doesn\u2019t kill six million people. How do you find people over five years?\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer, he said, boiled down to one word: indifference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world stood by \u2013 Poland, the U.K., the U.S. \u2013 they remained silent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a choice. No one cared. No one helped us \u2013 so because we have knowledge of the horror of murder, it gives us the responsibility to stand up and prevent stuff to others. Our living memory provides life-saving support.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEighty years later, our community is giving refugees a chance, new hope,\u201d he said. \u201cWe feel lucky that our community that has been a symbol of tragedy and loss is now a center of life. I am incredibly grateful of our work and proud to receive this award.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first of three local awards went to Paul H. Carleton, managing partner of Carleton McKenna, who was the recipient of the Gordon E. Heffern Award for Values, Ethics and Community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m deeply honored,\u201d Carleton said in his acceptance speech. \u201cI accept this award with gratitude and humility. You never know how far a single act of kindness will travel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their winning reflections on the meaning of kindness earned Grant Lee of Solon High School and Sophia Lopez of Cedarville High School near Springfield the Eric Scott Russell Student Kindness Award, which recognizes students who consistently demonstrate kindness, caring and mutual respect in interactions with their peers and adults.Lee and Lopez were chosen to host a \u201cKick Off for Kindness\u201d video viewed in a half-million high schools nationwide in February through VIA\u2019s partnership with the NFL Foundation.<\/p>\n
Vincent Delie, chairman, president and CEO of F.N.B. Corp. and First National Bank, received the Malden Mills Corporate Kindness Award in absentia, with Boyd K. Pethel, First National Bank\u2019s executive vice president of metro markets and Ohio regional president, accepting it for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s passionate, caring and leads with empathy and kindness,\u201d Pethel said of Delie. \u201cWe should all do it, but we don\u2019t. I love Values-in-Action. I want to make the world a kinder place. Sign me up for that. Sign me up every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family of the late Michael Gibbons, Values-in-Action board chair from 2023 to 2025, accepted the Heffern-Meyer Family Legacy Award in his memory. Ohio State Rep. Matt Huffman of Lima recalled the time that Gibbons, wearing a tux en route to a formal dinner, stopped to help three women change a flat tire, arriving late and disheveled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how he defied gravity,\u201d he said. \u201cHe wanted Ohio to be \u2018the kindness state.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
At the evening\u2019s outset, Muszynski invited all to be part of Values-in-Action\u2019s \u201cUnited States of Kindness\u201d initiative by completing 250 acts of kindness this year in honor of the nation\u2019s 250th birthday. He calculates that 250 billion acts of kindness can change a nation.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Values in Action,\u2019 or \u2018via,\u2019 is a small but powerful word. Our \u2018via\u2019 is our way forward when the path is not easy,\u201d Stewart Kohl, Values-in-Action advisory board chair, said. \u201cLet\u2019s go out and push kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If gravity is the force that pulls us down, then kindness is the force that pulls us up,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[619,9212,6918,1526,9214,56,9,9213,9215,9211,6915],"class_list":["post-12785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-krakow","tag-israel","tag-jcc-krakow","tag-jewish-community-centre-of-krakw","tag-jews","tag-kindness","tag-krakow","tag-poland","tag-qadi","tag-refugee","tag-rescuer-of-humanity-award","tag-values-in-action"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}