What makes Greenbelt outstanding? The resident who was granted the city’s Outstanding Citizen award at last year’s Greenbelt Labor Day Festival might say, “kindness.”
Whether through litter cleanup, literacy programs, food and essentials distribution, neighborhood outreach or other initiatives that help families in need and bring people together, Robert Goldberg-Strassler sees every act of service as an expression of kindness and care for others. Picking up litter isn’t just for the environment, he says. It’s showing you care about the people who live there. And that kindness can spread through taking the initiative, accompanying others in their efforts and inviting them to join you. “When our kids and grandkids saw us picking up trash, they started doing it too,” he explained. As more people get involved, whether to volunteer or to receive help, the circle of support and impact grows.
RUAK Beginnings
In 2017 Goldberg-Strassler started Random Unselfish Acts of Kindness (RUAK). “It’s not even a 501(c)(3),” he says. “It’s a movement.” One of RUAK’s first initiatives was to encourage residents to get outside for a walk called HUG (Help Unite Greenbelt With A Little Kindness). Each year, HUG walkers cross the boundaries that divide Greenbelt, get to know each other and learn new things to love about the city they call home. RUAK’s website features things to love about Greenbelt, some of them quite unexpected. Another initiative has been inviting people to pick up trash on their walk or jog. Called “plogging,” the idea has spread across the world but had not yet caught on in Greenbelt.
Inviting people to walk together or “plog” may not be new, but putting an article in the News Review to invite anyone who wants to do it to join him, without first organizing a series of meetings to plan it or applying for grants, may be a new concept to some. “It doesn’t cost money,” Goldberg-Strassler says. “If you check every program I’ve done, everything is free. I give out free books to promote or uplift literacy, healthy food, snacks.”
Help for the Homeless
His philosophy is simple: “I have enough and people have needs. I go out into the woods and help the homeless.” Because of the plogging article, the 30 people who responded found it easier to take action and didn’t have to feel like they were doing it alone.
Another RUAK initiative that has grown steadily is Goldberg‑Strassler’s pre‑K literacy program, where children choose free books and healthy snacks while parents read with them. At last month’s event, 54 children attended, a remarkable cross‑section of Greenbelt’s diversity all gathered around reading. “If you saw the diversity of children picking up books and snacks, the parents reading to the children, that’s transformative. That’s why kindness is a verb,” he says. For him, literacy is another form of kindness: giving families what they need to grow, learn and feel connected.
A Plug for Plogging
It took Goldberg-Strassler putting himself out there for plogging to get it going in Greenbelt. But when he learned he would be announced as Greenbelt’s Outstanding Citizen last year, he nearly didn’t attend the ceremony. His daughter and grandchildren coaxed him to the Labor Day Festival that afternoon. “Otherwise, you know I have other things to do,” he says. This is because Robert is an introvert, “a recluse,” as he calls it. Even so, he hasn’t let this stop him from connecting to others and making a difference. For two months of every year for the last 15 he has baked for a program dedicated to a 23-year-old he’d known since birth who died from anorexia. “Her parents started a scholarship. I started an annual fundraiser and we gave out 12 scholarships.”
For more than 40 years, he has quietly woven a network of kindness throughout Greenbelt. His decades of experience have made him a kind of informal guide for residents navigating services and support. People who don’t know how to begin the search, know to contact Robert. He’s the 411. “That’s a little bit of why I was invited to become a member of the Greenbelt Interfaith Leadership Association (GILA). Just through my life experiences and Judy’s [his spouse], I know where the resources are. I know who provides the services. I know what the programs are. It’s real-time stuff and people need real-time. I just have that sort of network.”
On the Payroll
Since Goldberg-Strassler received the award last year, that network and its influence have widened. The Greenbelt Porch Project doubled in the neighborhoods it serves. The need is when you see people struggling. Donations of food and essential items nearly doubled. Five or six new neighborhood coordinators stepped forward. People who had never donated before began showing up with bags of groceries, hygiene kits and supplies for families in crisis, “helping people who have lost their jobs, donating food to people who need it. The timing of that couldn’t be more important,” he says.
“I’ve got two new programs I’m doing with birthday boxes for homeless children,” he says. “Someone told somebody about what they heard at the ceremony about the things I do. This lady called me and met me in a parking lot. She had 50 full bags for homeless people of toiletries, underwear, socks and dental hygiene. She goes, ‘I know you’ll get it to the people.’ And the timing couldn’t have been better because it happened a week before the camp [run by the Community Crisis Services of Prince George’s County] in January.” Goldberg-Strassler was able to get them the supplies in time. Moments like this show how quickly kindness moves when people know where to turn.
“I am willing to share the information that I have to help improve life in Greenbelt,” he says. On receiving the award, there was an influx of “people becoming aware of how connected I am to programs and service and how to solve problems.” Rather than being overwhelming “it highlights the need out there.”
A New Form
There does not seem to be a limit to what form kindness can take. He invited the police chief, crisis intervention director and the director of Greenbelt CARES to present at each of the GILA meetings in the summer, “to tell faith leaders what services and programs exist and communicate those to their congregations and communities. These are the services and programs Greenbelt residents have access to,” he says.
What’s next? “I’m going to start giving out microgrants to any group in Greenbelt that wants to start conversations and community gatherings all over Greenbelt. The program will be called Greenbelt WON (Greenbelt With Our Neighbors). It will be inspiring civic life.”
Someone who wants to do anything to bring people together, such as host a block party, can receive $50 or $75 to get started. Goldberg-Strassler also knows whom to call if you want the city to set up benches for that block party and take them away the next day and do it for free, he says. “If you call the Greenbelt Public Works or the Constituent Services Coordinator [Gizelle Alvarez] and say I need five picnic tables on such and such a day, they’ll bring them to you,” he says.
One Person’s Initiative
Goldberg‑Strassler’s story shows how one person’s quiet initiative can ripple across an entire city. If someone you know takes the initiative to serve others in a spirit of kindness and cooperation, especially someone whose efforts help residents across the city, don’t hesitate to nominate them.
You can use the nomination form on page 7 of this issue or send a letter or e-mail, no later than Saturday, August 1 with your name, your nominee’s name and why you’re nominating them to Outstanding Citizen Committee, c/o Tom Jones, 1 Woodland Way Unit C, Greenbelt MD 20770 or OutstandingCitizenGB@gmail.com.
