I need to shine a light on Saratoga New York – one of the kindest places in America.
That’s where the idea for a viral event that took place across the country this year called “Leap of Kindness Day‘ emanated from. It was held on …you guessed it…Leap Day!
I love Saratoga. Been there enough times to know I could live there.
I invited Todd Shimkus the President of The Saratoga Chamber of Commerce, and originator of the kindness idea, to join me on The Debbie Nigro Show to talk about ‘The Kindness Movement’ they started in 2016.
Leap of Kindness Day was such a great idea, that 250 other Chambers of Commerce in the US and Canada joined in the movement this year to encourage the spread of meaningful kindness vibes and deeds. They even saw posts from Singapore, New Zealand, the UK,and India. Some of the acts of kindness were extraordinary said Todd. From cleaning up parks, to donating books to local nursing homes, and there was even an effort in Jasper County Illinois where the elementary school kids donated hundreds of boxes of cereal to a local food pantry.
It’s always worth my time to showcase people on this planet doing beautiful things because most people are good, and I know we sometimes forget that because the world we live in is tough.
Speaking of good things, Todd shared all the cool stuff coming up in Saratoga, NY this year. He says they welcome half a million visitors to their city of 28,000 every year and that 90% of the businesses that are located there are locally owned.
“Oh my God, we have so much going on in our community, especially as we head into this summer. You know, the New York City Ballet is coming back to SPAC, the Philadelphia Orchestra, we are their summer home. They’ve got some extraordinary performances there. We’ve got the Universal Preservation Hall, which is new coming out of COVID. It’s a fully restored church that was acoustically designed to allow people to perform and the sound to be just amazing for musical events. Cafe Lina, which is one of the oldest venues you’ll find for music as well is here. And then of course the Saratoga Racecourse, and our casino.We are hosting the Belmont Stakes in Saratoga on June 8th for the first time ever. And it’s sold out for Saturday, June 8th.”
“50,000 people will be at the race course that day. There’s still tickets available for Thursday and Friday and Sunday around that. And we expect a week-long celebration of that just amazing event, especially if there’s a Triple Crown potential for one of the horses.”
Saratoga is THE place for horse racing.
That Saratoga Race Course is special. Sports Illustrated named it one of the world’s greatest sporting venues. As I kid I remember that every Summer for years and years, my parents and all my aunts, uncles and their friends would go to Saratoga in August and always stayed at a place called The Gideon Putnam, and always left all us kids home.
It was decades later that I finally went there myself and got to see what all the fuss was about. It’s an incredible place. I was so annoyed they never took us kids all those years! LOL
Saratoga Race Course is a Thoroughbred horse racing opened in 1863 and is considered to be the oldest major sporting venue of any kind in the country but is actually the fourth oldest racetrack in the U.S. according to Wikipedia. You will feel the nostalgia there and you get to see all the beautiful horses up close.
There’s a lot more too in Saratoga that captured my soul and I’ve gone back a few times to enjoy the food, the music, and the beauty of this charming place.
And Saratoga has active mineral springs. I just learned there are currently 21 public mineral springs in various locations throughout Saratoga. Most of the springs are naturally carbonated and no two springs taste exactly alike. That’s because each spring has its own distinct mineral makeup and flavor profile. There are supposed health benefits ranging from clearing skin, to helping digestion, and even strengthening blood! You can even ‘Design Your Own Mineral Springs Private Tasting Tour’.
I should also mention it’s supposedly the home of the original potato chip. That alone is worth a tasting trip to see about that!
Enjoy this podcast of my live conversation with Todd Shimkus the President of The Saratoga Chamber of Commerce on The Debbie Nigro Show. If you’d rather read than listen the transcript of the audio is below.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
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And now, back to the Debbie Nigro Show.
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Well, you know, I always try and put the light in the dark here on the show. It’s what I do trying to put the live in alive and, you know, and focus on hopeful stuff on this show. No politics. BUT I’d like to give you a little insight in how to respectfully disagree with respect to that. Good timing on Super Tuesday. Anyway, hi, everybody. I’m Debbie Nigro. I got a super guest coming up for you right now.
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You know what else is trending here on my Trending Tuesday show? Kindness. How nice is that to hear? And I’m shining a light on Saratoga, New York, one of the kindest places in America because that’s where the idea began for a viral event that took place across the country last week called Leap of Kindness Day. It’s held of course, yes, you guessed it, on Leap Day. Todd Shimkus is the president of the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce and he’s joining me today on the Debbie Nigro show because that’s where the kindness movement started.
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Saratoga, New York, they got this idea in 2016 and it spread all over the country and I want to know what happened with the goodness and the kindness that spread all across the country last week.
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Hey there, Todd, welcome to my show. Hi Debbie, thanks so much for having me and thanks so much for that great plug for Saratoga Springs being so kind.
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Oh my gosh, I have always heard amazing things about Saratoga. I now have been there enough times to know why, Todd, but when I was a kid my parents and aunts and uncles, like a giant bunch of people, would go every year to Saratoga in the summer in August They love the horses and at least to go up to say the Gideon Putnam Hotel And I was a kid were like when are we getting to go to this Gideon Putnam Hotel? So I always had the the fantasy of like what is this place like and then when I got there? I’m like I get it now It’s magical town place city county amazing
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Yeah, I believe we welcome some three and a half million visitors to our city of 28,000 people every year. And you know right now, you’re talking to a chamber guy, right? And you look at the economy and how our economy is doing. You know on Broadway and Saratoga Springs right now, we do not have a single vacancy on the first floor. And 90% of the businesses that are located there are locally owned. The restaurants, the shops, the bars, it’s just an extraordinary place and I’m so fortunate to be in this job here, that’s for sure.
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Oh my gosh, that street is amazing. The bars and restaurants are amazing. It’s just beautiful and very, very clean and very kind. So it’s always cool to start a movement, right? And obviously back in 2016, somebody had this big idea that became even a bigger idea. The Leap of Kindness Day. Tell me about the beginning.
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Yeah, it’s kind of an interesting… I’ve been in chamber work for starting my 30th year and the first time I ever thought about doing something with the extra day was in the year 2000 when I was in Lemonster, Massachusetts. I did nothing with it for 15 years. In 2015 in Saratoga, I convened a group of people at the Chamber Office, for-profit, non-profit organizations and said, ìYou know, in 2016 we have an extra day. Iíve always thought we should do something special with it, you know, inspire our community. I didn’t know what we would do, right? So we had a great conversation and this woman, Bo Glieber, who at the time worked for a local
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marketing firm, burst out and said, ìPod, let’s call it Leap of Kindness Day.î And that’s literally where it was born. I would add one fun thing about it is the companies that were in the room that day said, look, we don’t want this to be about buying a cup of coffee for the next person in line. We want it to be impactful here, and we’ve got to figure out how to make it impactful. And that took a little effort
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on the part of the chamber team. What we decided to do was to reach out to all of our nonprofits, explain that, hey, on February 29th of 2016, we all get an extra day, we would like local people to do something kind, what types of things do you need and want? And that’s how it all started.
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Yeah, so the things you ask people to do are suggested, right? Or make a donation to the favorite local non-profit, take a co-worker or family member or friend out to breakfast, lunch or dinner and tip big, you know, write and deliver a thank you note to somebody who made a positive difference in your life, sign up to volunteer for a local charity, and I like the last one as well, leave a positive online review for your favorite local business. That is so meaningful in the world we live in. That was just great suggestions, great suggestions. So the idea was so good, thanks to you guys, it spread all over the country. How many other chambers around the country last
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week had Leap of Kind this day? Yeah, we had over 250 chambers of commerce, predominantly. I think we’re in 45 states. We’re all across Canada. We saw posts from Singapore, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, India. So it did go worldwide. And some of the acts of kindness were you know just extraordinary to cleaning up parks donating books to local nursing home there was one in jasper county illinois where the kids of this elementary school donated four hundred boxes of cereal to a local food pantry
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but before they gave him to the pantry the teachers set it up like dominoes and the kids got to cheer when the last box fell.
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Oh, I love it.
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So, it’s just really extraordinary stuff all over the place.
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Wow, that’s got to make you just be filled with joy.
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Well, yesterday I wore a Be Kind Jasper County, Illinois sweatshirt to work because they sent me one to thank me for coming up with the idea and sharing it with everyone.
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So, that’s pretty humbling. Yes, and congratulations to you and everybody at the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce. I wanted to, I know everybody was getting at you last week, wanted you to be on, on the day of, which probably was exhausting. That’s why I waited until today, a couple days later, see how it went, give you the love that you deserve and not be, you know, lumped in with everybody else. I wanted you to stand out and the idea that some people on this planet can still do amazingly beautiful things and people are mostly good and I know that we sometimes forget that because
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the world we live in is tough but good always seems to rise and this is something that just kindness rose. So it’s just worth my time to have you on my radio show today.
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Well, I really appreciate that, you know, and we are already planning for Leap of Kindness Day 2028. I will say it’s a little ironic that Leap of Kindness Day always falls in a presidential election year when I do believe we could use even more kindness just to offset all the stuff that’s out there, right?
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I just did a whole segment right before you came on and I apologize for challenging communication because there was a time difference with how to respectfully disagree with other people. That was my whole subject. A nice guy was on the show who wrote a whole book about this. And it’s important that you lead with kindness to your fellow humans whenever you encounter them because you never know what’s going on with them. And yes, we all have come from different backgrounds and different experiences, but we’re all wrapped in the same skin, bones and heart, hopefully.
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Some hearts are softer than others, but always work through the heart and you’ll have a better outcome. Before you go, what’s going on in Saratoga? I’m coming back up. I can’t wait to come back. I just love the place. Tell everybody why they should come, what’s going on, what’s upcoming.
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Oh my God, we have so much going on in our community, especially as we head into this summer. You know, the New York City Ballet is coming back to SPAC, the Philadelphia Orchestra, we are their summer home. They’ve got some extraordinary performances there. We’ve got the Universal Preservation Hall, which is new coming out of COVID. It’s a fully restored church that was acoustically designed to allow people to perform and the sound to be just amazing for musical events. Cafe Lina, which is one of the oldest
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venues you’ll find for music as well as here. And then of course the Saratoga Racecourse, our casino. We are hosting the Belmont Stakes n Saratoga on June 8th for the first time ever. And it’s sold out for Saturday, June 8th.
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Oh, unbelievable.
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Yeah, so 50,000 people will be at the race course that day. There’s still tickets available for Thursday and Friday and Sunday around that. And we expect a week-long celebration of that just amazing event, especially if there’s a Triple Crown potential for one of the horses. That would just be unbelievable.
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Unbelievable. Hey, I’m glad you reminded everybody the Belmont Stakes, which is usually a New York, Southern New York thing, and we know well know where Belmont Racetrack is. The Belmont Stakes, one of the Triple Crown events, is in fact going to be in Saratoga this year, and that’s my father’s birthday June 8th. I almost feel like I got to come you know Todd I may have to come I in his honor I may have to come we might be able to squeeze a ticket or two out for you you’re cute hey you know what I was thinking I’m looking to expand my ideas of where I’m I just wrote a book and it’s called how to talk
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to strangers advice from a professional stranger talker it’s really about being kinder to people in conversation, being open to chance encounters. You never know where they’ll lead. I’m going to come do a book signing in Saratoga, too. I’m going to find a good place because loneliness is a huge problem and this is my antidote to loneliness and sparking people to be more open to more meaningful conversations with each other. Just know I’m coming for that, too.
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Awesome. We have a local bookstore, Northshire Bookstore. They do book events, author events all the time. I’m also a published author. My book was called I’m Not Ready for This. About caring for my mom with Alzheimer’s.
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Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. It sounded like a fun title for a second, but that’s not that was not fun. I’m sure that was challenging.
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Well, it was it was about that and then trying to save and rescue Saratoga from the pandemic and all of the protocols that New York State imposed upon our small businesses. So I had those two crises going on at the same time. So and you’re still standing.
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That’s amazing.
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You know what we what I think we all learned from COVID is those of us that did make it through are more resilient today than we ever were and hopefully a little kinder to.
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Yeah, absolutely. Well, this was joyful getting to say hello to you, Todd. And I put up… Listen, I want to just let you know, of all days, I was posting on my social media about your being on the show, and it wasn’t working. I’m like, what is wrong with Instagram, Facebook? I’m saying nothing. There was a big outage, and nobody… everybody was locked out of their accounts today, in case you didn’t get the memo.
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I saw that. I’m actually supposed to be on a podcast tomorrow on Facebook again, Weebkindness Day, and thank God it’s tomorrow and not today.
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I thought it was my imagination, because, you know, you must have a lot of passwords as the president of the Chamber of Commerce, and sometimes you think you’re nuts, you know, because you try, then you change the password, then you try again, they’re like, no, and you’re like, what, are you kidding me? So it wasn’t us, it was them today, just so you know just give me this Good to know yes, all right. Well. I can’t thank you anymore for your time today, and If you guys have just tuned in you are being reminded how important
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Kindness is in the world and being reminded where a beautiful day called leap of kindness day started whom it started with, Todd Shimkus and his crew over at the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce, Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, started it all and have created a movement of kindness around the country that’s worth shining a light on today. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. We’ll be in touch. Thanks, Debbie.
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I appreciate it. Okay. Ciao.
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Oh, yeah, everybody, the Belmont.
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You’ve got to go to Saratoga for the Belmont Stakes.
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That’ll be a good trip. That’ll be a good trip.
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All right, one more segment right after this.
Transcribed with Cockatoo
