Kind Stories in Concert
April 6, 2025
7:00 pm-8:30 pm EDT
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“Kindness is having the ability to speak with love, listen with patience, and act with compassion.”
-Random Acts of Kindness Foundation
Join the Healing Story Alliance for a special gathering to share and explore stories of kindness in its many faces and forms. Through folk tales and personal stories, we will dive deeply into multiple experiences of kindness. What is it? How does it impact us and our relationships to ourselves, to each other, to the world? Come and listen to “kind stories” shared by both professional tellers and community members and see what memories of kindness emerge for you.
Date: April 6, 2025
Time: 7:00pm-8:30pm EDT
(Open Mic Story Share and Reflection: last half hour)
Format: The story session opens with a concert of seasoned tellers and community tellers sharing stories with themes of kindness. During the second half of the gathering, audience members are invited to share a story, moment, or reflection about kindness that emerged for them as listeners.
Purpose: We all need a little more kindness in our lives. Perhaps a story can take us there.
“WHEN YOU ARE KIND TO OTHERS, IT NOT ONLY CHANGES YOU, IT CHANGES THE WORLD.” Harold Kushner
ABOUT the STORYTELLERS
Featured Tellers
Kim Weitkamp is an award-winning storyteller, author, singer-songwriter and humorist. After using applied storytelling in her work with adjudicated and at risk youth for 12 years, Kim took a turn onto a different avenue of story and song which led her down the path of full time touring for the last 15 years where she gathered an armload of awards. She performs regularly at festivals and theaters around the country, has written a well-received folk operetta and has been a guest editor and contributor for various publications. She has 8 award winning albums, has produced and/or designed 32 albums for other performers and has hosted a morning show for a DOVE Award winning radio network. She is ranked as one of the top 20 business coaches in the Columbus, Ohio region by Influence Digest, teaching the power of story to help grow organizations and build teams.
Jim May is an EMMY Award-winning storyteller and prize-winning author. A full-time storyteller since 1986 presenting at schools, festivals and other venues throughout the US, Great Britain, Ireland, Mexico and Canada. His latest collection of stories, Trail Guide For a Crooked Heart, won an “Anne Izard Best Book Award” from the Westchester, NY Library Foundation. A teacher by training and by heart he has led workshops throughout the US, Canada, and an annual weeklong retreat in Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico. He and his artist wife, Nan Seidler, live in an 1840’s circa dairy barn in Harvard, Illinois, on a conservation easement along the Nippersink Creek, where he leads Summer Solstice Storytelling workshops.
Raffini has been involved in the Theater Arts for more than three decades. Her work began as an actress at the Langston Hughes Center in Providence RI and at the Rites and Reason Theatre where she performed for more than ten years. She also toured with Theatre for Emily, Looking Glass Theater and became a member of Rhode Island Black Storytellers (RIBS). Along with George Bass she co-wrote a scene in the original script “Armed with Cruel Hate” that toured the New England region. She also wrote a play that premiered on the Rites and Reason stage. Her personal shows/scripts have been performed at Rhode Island College, URI, Black Rep., LaSalle University and Temple University in Philadelphia. Raffini is also a mentor for young black tellers through RIBS.
Emcee
Hears Crow (Nootauau Kaukontuoh), “she hears the crow”, is a woman of the Eastern Woodlands. She lives her life in the tradition of the Nanhigganêuck, the people known today as the Narragansett. She is a Storyteller of Longhouse Tales, told in many different ways including Native Sign Language, call and response as well as other traditional styles. She has twice been awarded publishing contracts for her book of poetry and is currently completing a Native children’s novel. She brings to life the oral tradition at schools, community centers, Indigenous gatherings and wherever the stories lead her.
Community Tellers
Agent Poems is 16 years old and has been writing poetry for two years. He uses poetry as a way to spread love and lessons of life.
John Hamilton was born into a spirited Irish-American family of singers and storytellers. He studied philosophy and music as an undergraduate, and played music professionally for fifteen years until a debilitating onset of panic disorder abruptly halted his career. He entered the business world where he thrived as a creative director in advertising. Despite professional success, Hamilton's persistent quest for the transcendent led him to seminary and, eventually, to twenty-five years of parish work as a pastor. His most recent book, “Honest To God” chronicles his loss of connection to the transcendent and his walk into the wilderness to search for it again. He maintains an active presence on Substack, has 25,000 followers on Spotify, and another book, “The Weight of Snow” in the works for 2026.
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