Our amazing past leaders continue to use the skills they've learned at Unstoppable Kindness to make a positive impact.

Samantha cichos - 2021-2024

“Growing up in Seattle, I always knew that homelessness was a big problem. I heard statistics about homelessness and saw the tent cities around the Seattle area, and of course I cared but I never felt true compassion. That changed when I started working with Unstoppable Kindness. During our monthly sandwich makings the older kids would always make the sandwiches while the younger kids, including me, would decorate brown paper lunch bags. It initially seemed like a small, insignificant thing, but sitting down every month and drawing little pictures and writing messages on those paper bags turned out to be one of the most valuable lessons for me. I actually thought about the individuals or families who would be receiving the lunches the next day and about what I could put onto that brown bag that might, even for a few minutes, brighten their day. Through the simple task of decorating sandwich bags I learned what empathy was and I learned to see beyond the statistics and stereotypes to find the humanity in the people we were helping.

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a co-leader of this incredible organization. Through the years I have already gained so many valuable skills in leadership, outreach, planning and goal-setting and am thankful that I will continue to develop these real-world skills while making a real impact on my local community. My goal as co-leader is to find more opportunities for our team to connect on a personal level with our community and to inspire others to realize what I did – that sometimes the biggest impact doesn’t come from raising large sums of money, it often comes from the smallest gestures or conversations that show that you truly do care.”

MARGOT LANGE - 2019-2022

“I am so excited and honored to be carrying on Unstoppable Kindness’ legacy with my amazing co-leaders this year. The mission of Unstoppable Kindness to serve our community with compassion and create powerful leaders out of the young women on our team is one that has inspired and affected many since its founding. As a member, being a part of the non-profit gave me a sense of gratitude for things that are easily taken for granted, and showed me that when a group of individuals come together, we can make a huge difference for people. As a leader, I hope to learn about organization, working with others, and inspiring our team to feel the satisfaction of bringing joy to others.”

Malena Palmer - 2018-2019

"Unstoppable Kindness thus far has impacted my life and changed my point of view in a positive way. Through my work of planning projects, sandwich making, and the auction itself, I have learned a lot about real world skills and having a sense of urgency around something bigger than myself.

Of course there have been plenty breakdowns, like not ordering supplies in time for an assembly and having to drive 30 minutes to a dollar tree store to pick up supplies, or time management when juggling University of Washington classes, team responsibilities, NCAA recruitment forms, and of course planning the annual auction. The breakdowns, I have learned and am learning, is the most important part of the program. Unstoppable Kindness has taught me how to push through when there is more on my plate than ever before, and how to find solutions to bigger issues.

Even more important than these life skills, is the fact that I am leading a team of girls who are eventually going to be experiencing the same struggles as I. I have noticed the utmost important part of these breakdowns is learning not how to hide them, but exposing yourself to them and to others. Being honest with these girls about my own struggles, so they know how to deal their own when it comes their time.  The owner of the barn, Sue Schultz, who encouraged us to start this program says you can only learn from your mistakes with transparency, otherwise how will anyone know when you messed up and how can they support you in becoming better. My goal as team leader is to let the girls know that there is never a perfect auction, or perfect assembly, or right way to approach something, because there will be upset and ugliness through the process of figuring things out. I do feel it is important to teach them how to come to these issues with power and fierceness. 

As for what I have accomplished in my year, I have set up governance for Unstoppable Kindness. Audrey and I have assembled a board for the non-profit and had the parents of the team members help us develop tenets, a charter, and by laws. I have also created and developed this website as a way to show our work and have a functioning social media platform, as well as started the tradition of photographing our projects to post on our website.

Audrey and I also have developed two new projects for Unstoppable Kindness. These were the welcome home baskets and birthday boxes. We are very excited to see these projects grow and bring more joy into the lives of the homeless impacted at Hope Place and Mary's Place."

Audrey Ford - 2018

"Being a part of Unstoppable Kindness has taught me skills that I know I will use for the rest of my life.

Unstoppable kindness is unique in that it provides an opportunity for girls to find their power as young women and teaches them that they have the ability to make a positive impact on the world. Because we are a locally based nonprofit, I have had the opportunity to directly interact with the homeless community. The members of this team learn to see each person as an individual and not a statistic. It teaches them to recognize the humanity in others and encourages the development compassion.

Through Unstoppable Kindness, I have furthered my knowledge in what it means to be a leader. I have come to understand the significance of serving others and trying to make a positive impact on the world.

I have also experienced the inevitable failure that comes with anything worth really doing. This failure has shown me that I can get back up and continue to do my job. It has taught me not to dwell on self-pity but to learn and move on.

When I was younger, I never really understood the impact that Unstoppable Kindness had on both me and the world. I am incredibly grateful that I get to see the impact that it has on the next generation of leaders and I am deeply honored to be a part of that."

sophia purdy - 2017

"I remember when Unstoppable Kindness was merely an idea held in the minds of a couple wide-eyed teenagers. I am constantly in awe of what has been created over the last several years through this incredible non-profit and people who know the value of service. My senior year of high school, after almost six years of actively serving with this non-profit, I became the co-president and treasurer. Through this process, a few of my perceptions were shifted. Arguably the most important realization: I found that the ugly stereotype surrounding homeless people only applies to a small proportion of the homeless population. I know it is easy for people similar to me, white, middle class, and mentally healthy, to forget that these people, who may seem so wildly different from the outside, have all the same human desires and wishes. Everyone wants and deserves to belong and feel safe in their community, have a roof over their head, and have food on their table. Beyond that, Unstoppable Kindness and the work I did as a part of the organization, helped me to develop a strong work ethic and organizational skills.

During my year as co-president, our annual auction raised over $40,000 dollars and we constructed and donated 100 sack lunches a month, 50 survival backpacks full of hygiene supplies and thousands of coats and canned food to local food banks. I am extremely grateful for the experiences I gained with Unstoppable Kindness and because of them, I will always strive to serve and relate to people with compassion, respect and understanding."

josie rimmer - 2017

"Through this organization I learned how to interact with organizations, other non-profits and leaders, and how to come together to solve an issue. We were able to collaborate on how Unstoppable Kindness could best use our people and our funds to support the efforts of other groups’ involvement.
I learned how to plan an event – how to organize caterers, guests, live and silent auction items. I toured venues, scoured the web for speakers and videos to play in order to inspire our guests. We were given the opportunity to speak publicly to our guests, which offered practice in speech writing and speaking in the front of a room.

Now, I am just finishing up my gap year. After high school, I wanted to explore the world. I traveled to Europe for a month and then to New Zealand for three months. The inherent unexpectedness of running a non-profit gave me some experience in taking things as they come – a skill that proved to be very useful in my travels.
Thanks to Unstoppable Kindness, I feel confident in my ability to make change within my community. Regardless of what the issue is, I believe in the power of assembling, doing the grueling, sometimes uncomfortable work in order to make a difference.

I feel a deep-rooted sense of empathy for the people I have encountered – the men, women and children who are working everyday to provide for the rest of their families. I see the humanity in their eyes and feel a deep urge to empower them and to create something that will help end the hunger crisis, the crisis of homelessness, and to recreate the humanity with which we handle people in opposing situations to our own.

During my year as a co-leader, my teammates and I led Unstoppable Kindness’s first backpack assembly – a backpack complete with items to help survive a cold night, or items to give each person a small piece of joy: a first aid kit, a blanket, a flashlight, socks/gloves/hats, a notebook and pen, and an umbrella. We also did our first hygiene pack assembly, making specialized packs of hygiene products for women and men. During our annual auction, thanks to many generous contributors, we were able to raise over $40,000."

julia kelly - 2016

"Words cannot describe the gift it has been to be apart of Unstoppable Kindness. The non-profit opening my eyes to how blessed I am; how I am given opportunities other people may never experience in their life. The gift of serving our community with my team members is an experience that I will carry with me throughout the rest of my life.

Working with those left alone on the street gave me a different perspective that forever changed my ways of thinking.

 Through working with Unstoppable Kindness I was shown how the world is in need of young leaders, people who go beyond the ordinary to perform extraordinary tasks. I am currently enrolled at California State University, Fresno, where I have chosen to follow the path of sociology. Through my studies I hope to continue the work of Unstoppable Kindness by helping the homeless community."

haley pembroke - 2016

"I became a part of Unstoppable Kindness when I was thirteen years old when I first joined the equestrian team at Deerfield Farm.  My work in this organization began with helping make sack lunches every month and by participating in any other events and fundraisers that the current leaders had organized.  At this age, I knew that what we were doing was powerful and important, but at this point, I had not experienced the magnitude to which our little organization was able to touch some peoples’ lives.  As a novice participant in the organization, Unstoppable Kindness began as something that I just simply did- I decorated brown paper bags and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and procured auction items and sold raffle tickets because they were tasks that I was expected to complete.  I understood the need for the work I was doing with my teammates, but for the first couple of years that I was a part of this organization, it had a minuet role in my life.

I remember one day quite clearly when I was about 16 years old that that began to change drastically.  I had been an avid participant in the making of thousands of sack lunches at this point, but I had yet to see or interact with the homeless community that we were serving.  I had decided one Sunday that I wanted to help drop off sandwiches at the Union Gospel Mission in downtown Seattle for the first time. As were we sitting in the car, waiting at an intersection at a red light, a woman who looked to be in her mid-fifties approached the window of our car.  I reached into the back of the car and pulled a sack lunch out, and we handed her the food out the car window.

The look on that woman’s face will stay with me for the rest of my life.  She accepted this brown paper sack with tears in her eyes and the most sincere gratitude that I have ever witnessed.  The way that this gesture so evidently touched her heart has since completely changed my awareness of the world and started to create an authentic desire to use my life to serve other people.  

I served as the Treasurer of Unstoppable Kindness during my senior year of high school, beginning in August of 2015 until I left for college at the end of the following summer.  During my time as a leader in Unstoppable Kindness, we made over 1,000 sack lunches, donated 100 supply backpacks to Youth Care, and collected several hundred winter clothing items in our winter clothing drive.  Additionally, our annual fundraiser, hosted in Spring of 2016, made revenues upwards of $19,000 and profited over $15,000.

My year as a leader for Unstoppable Kindness shifted my perspective and my awareness of the needs of the world and of the people around me.  My position in the organization pushed me out of my comfort zone and took me from being a passive participant of the organization to a highly invested leader.  Being part of the leadership of Unstoppable Kindness was a steep learning curve- I had little experience with planning events or managing fundraisers, and I knew close to nothing about the legal aspect of operating a nonprofit organization.   It was extremely confronting, but this experience was one of the greatest blessings in my life. My own self-centered concerns had to become irrelevant, as everything that we did had to be tailored to what would make the organization the most successful.  The goals that we set became the motivators for being completely unstoppable, and these goals provided strict measures of accountability for taking the actions necessary to achieve our accomplishments. Out of this, I have been given a heightened awareness of what needs to be done to serve the people around me.

My involvement in Unstoppable Kindness began when I joined the equestrian team at Deerfield Farm, with whom I competed and showed horses for five years at the local, regional, and world level.  During my time with Deerfield Farm I won a World Championship, two Reserve World Championships, and earned multiple top-five and top-ten placings at the Appaloosa Youth World Show over the course of 2014, 2015, and 2016.  I now attend Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama and am a member of their NCAA Division I Equestrian team. I am majoring in Accounting with a minor in Finance, am a member of the Financial Leadership Society, and spend several hours of my time each month volunteering at the Food Bank of East Alabama.  In my time as a student-athlete at Auburn University, I have made the Dean’s List in the fall of 2016, First-Year SEC Academic Honor Roll in spring of 2017, and named to the 2018 NCEA Academic Honor Roll."

ally waltz - 2015

"Because of this organization, I was able to expand on what I considered my community and the possibilities for what I would be able to achieve for them and all those that I was around. From the experiences with the Union Gospel Mission my way of thinking was pushed past what I was originally comfortable with and towards something more open to those in need.

A lot of what I have achieved in my college career can be attributed to the confidence and compassion I was taught while being an active member of Unstoppable Kindness. As of right now I am a second semester Sociology major, and Anthropology minor, with a near complete certification in Human Resources from Washington State University. I am also a member of the sorority Chi Omega, and regular volunteer for the Made-A- Wish foundation and Habitat for Humanity. Once I graduate college I hope to be able and go into a career involving Human Resources while continuing to volunteer with both Make-A- Wish and Habitat for Humanity. If I could pinpoint one of the biggest effects that this amazing non profit has given me, it would probably be that ability to know that I can create change in the world. It may be something small at first, but all great things have small beginnings.

In terms of what I apart of physically accomplishing, my partner, Taeya Harle, and I were the leaders the were able to get Unstoppable Kindness officially registered and squared away as a non profit within the state of Washington. Along with completing the paperwork that year we were also able to have collected over $15,000 in donations, most of which was gathered during through a silent and live action."

eva Marcellis - 2012-14

“Unstoppable Kindness been instrumental in shaping the trajectory of my academic and professional career thus far. Incorporating and serving as the President of Unstoppable Kindness gave me not only insight into the nuances of the different working parts of a non-profit, but also taught me the value of grass-roots, community based non-profits. My involvement in Unstoppable Kindness peaked my interest in academic career at the University of Georgia to research the vital role that grass-roots movements and community-based non-profits have in long term change and social justice. During my time as President of Unstoppable Kindness we raised over $28,000 at our annual fundraiser—a mere dent in the thousands raised over the last seven years. One of the most powerful aspects of Unstoppable Kindness is its mission, and inherent capability to inspire and train youth--our world’s future leaders. With that being said, Unstoppable Kindness is unique in its 100% matriculation of benefactor donations directly into its projects and beneficiaries. 

The overarching mission of Unstoppable Kindness has certainty been tangible in my everyday drive, capabilities, and motivations. My commitment to philanthropy in my professional and academic career, I owe fully to my time with UK under the mentorship of Sue Schultz. At the University of Georgia, this commitment instilled in me has been situated at the center of all my pursuits. I will be graduating Cum Laude with majors in International Affairs, Arabic, and a minor in Philosophy; before moving on to earn my MSc in International Development and Complex Humanitarian Emergencies at the London School of Economics in the Fall of 2018. In the last four years, I have continued my philanthropic pursuits by working with refugees both domestically and abroad managing resettlement programs, refugee and IDP camp mental health resources, and camp education outreach. After earning my Masters, I intend to continue my work with refugees by managing emergency response programs for NGO’s in conflict zones pushing massive numbers of people away from their homes. Working with the homeless population in Seattle with UK gave me the insight into poverty reduction, resource management, and a renewed sense of compassion that is vital in my work today. If there is one thing that my time on the ground managing UK and humanitarian projects has taught me, it is that underestimating the importance of a sandwich, a backpack, or a book is a dangerous and futile undertaking.”