Students, faculty and community members gathered on Sproul Plaza to present UC Berkeley freshman William Chui and Golden Bear Caf\u00e9 cashier Verna Watson \u2014 affectionately known as \u201cMiss B\u201d \u2014 with this month\u2019s Chris Kindness Award on Feb. 13.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2022 by UC Berkeley business and political science lecturer Alan Ross, the award recognizes individuals in the Berkeley community who exemplify kindness through service.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe give awards for everything in our society. How about kindness?\u201d Ross said at the ceremony.<\/p>\n
This month, two recipients were honored with the $1,000 reward, and one of them, Chui, is only the second student since 2022 to receive it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chui was recognized for founding the Stooping Club, a reuse initiative he launched after moving to Oakland during high school. Because he \u201cdidn\u2019t have that much stuff,\u201d Chui began collecting usable items left on curbs, photographing them and posting them online for free. The project, inspired by New York\u2019s \u201cStooping\u201d movement, quickly grew into an international network.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of our missions is to transform society\u2019s culture into a reuse culture, and that requires a lot of hands together to go out, collect these items, put them on the sides (and) raise awareness in the community,\u201d Chui said. \u201cI just feel proud knowing that so many young people want to make a real-world difference \u2026 and that they have this opportunity to do so through Stooping Club.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stooping Club now includes 20 branches across six countries and works to make reuse the easiest option for communities seeking to live more sustainably. Now at Berkeley, he has partnered with the campus\u2019s housing and dining to divert items discarded during student move-outs away from landfills.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Verna Watson, a cashier at the Golden Bear Caf\u00e9 for more than 20 years, also received this month\u2019s Chris Kindness Award.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLike many students, our day doesn\u2019t start until we go to GBC and see Miss B on register number two,\u201d said Jason Maddy, general manager for campus restaurants, addressing the crowd during the ceremony.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Students and colleagues know Watson for her kindness and signature knitted caps, which, over decades, have cemented her as the glue that holds together the Berkeley dining community, according to Maddy.<\/p>\n
Maddy said Watson creates a \u201cmoment of pause\u201d in UC Berkeley\u2019s \u201chigh stress\u201d environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe understands that \u2026 they realize that you don’t see them as another transaction or customer count, but you see them as who they are as a student,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ross closed the ceremony, encouraging attendees to continue nominating community members. He said he hopes to expand the award to San Francisco later this year with the help of financial donations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii was in attendance at the Feb. 13 ceremony and emphasized the importance of recognizing local acts of kindness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of negativity in the world right now,\u201d Ishii said. \u201cIt\u2019s really important that we take a look at what\u2019s happening on the local level and remember that there are really great people doing important work here in our communities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students, faculty and community members gathered on Sproul Plaza to present UC Berkeley freshman William Chui and Golden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7983,45770,764,45771,54593,85533,85530,143,145,144,26656,85532,149,85531,85529],"class_list":{"0":"post-180125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-adena-ishii","9":"tag-alan-ross","10":"tag-berkeley","11":"tag-chris-kindness-award","12":"tag-golden-bear-caf","13":"tag-housing-and-dining","14":"tag-jason-maddy","15":"tag-oakland","16":"tag-oakland-headlines","17":"tag-oakland-news","18":"tag-sproul-plaza","19":"tag-stooping-club","20":"tag-uc-berkeley","21":"tag-verna-watson","22":"tag-william-chui"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}