Ben's Bells founder returns to school to study kind communication

Be Kind. That’s the mantra that local nonprofit organization Ben’s Bells has used to educate people about the power of kindness for the last 16 years.

Now, Ben’s Bells founder Jeannette Maré has decided to take her commitment to kindness education even further by returning to the classroom and making kind communication the topic of her dissertation at the University of Arizona.

Maré, who serves as Ben’s Bells chief kindness officer, enrolled this fall as a doctoral student in the UA’s Department of Communication and plans to research how best to equip people with the skills they need to practice kindness during difficult conversations.

“In my generation, you were taught not to talk about things like race, religion, politics or grief, but if we don’t learn how to talk about these things, how can we expect to solve any of these problems?” Maré said. “I’m looking into what it takes to get people into the frame of mind that they need to be in to learn how to have these difficult conversations.”

Maré graduated from the UA with a bachelor’s degree in linguistics in 1989 and later joined the Disability Resource Center as a sign language interpreter. In 2000, she began teaching linguistics and sign language in the UA’s College of Education before becoming full-time executive director of Ben’s Bells.

Communications professor Kory Floyd, whose research focuses on the communication of affection, will be advising Maré’s work throughout her Ph.D. program.

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“A consistent finding in my research is that people profit both by receiving affection from others and also by giving it,” Floyd said. “By encouraging kindness, Jeannette’s work benefits not only the recipients of that kindness, but also those who provide it.”

Mare said the kindness of others is what helped her heal after her 3-year-old son, Ben, died unexpectedly in 2002.

As a way to cope , Maré and her family came up with a ceramic design for Ben’s Bells and started making them in their backyard with friends. They made hundreds of little bells and distributed them in the community with the hope that people would continue to spread the message and remember to be kind. “Since Ben’s death, it had been the kindness of others, strangers and friends, that had helped us begin to heal,” Maré said on the Ben’s Bells website. “We wanted to find a way to pass on that kindness and to help others in the process.”

Now, with four studio locations and more than 25,000 volunteers annually, Ben’s Bells has become one of the most recognized symbols throughout Tucson. In addition to creating handmade ornaments and other merchandise, the organization has also expanded its reach by offering several education programs for schools and workplaces around the world.

Maré said her decision to return to school meant that she would have to reduce her hours with Ben’s Bells. The transition was made possible in part by the hiring of a new executive director, Helen Gomez, who previously served as director of external and alumni relations for the UA’s College of Humanities.

Moving forward, Maré said she is excited to delve into her research, learn more about kindness communication and find ways that Ben’s Bells can continue to impact the community. “People may have the intention to be kind, but it is not enough. There needs to be a skillset that allows us to produce a message — verbally or nonverbally — that actually results in support.”