After two weeklong road trips, one 6,000-mile journey and one 10,000-mile drive, three 22-year-olds are going to colleges across the country to connect with students and help others.
Alex Radelich, Dalton Lemert and Theodore Thatcher biked thousands of miles to UF to spread kindness. Radelich, Lemert and Thatcher founded ARK Project Now, an organization that performs acts of random kindness.
On their stop in Gainesville, the trio worked with Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity to build houses with Habitat for Humanity.
The idea for the project came to Radelich when he was a freshman at Purdue University while watching “Evan Almighty,” a movie starring Steve Carell and Morgan Freeman.
At that moment, ARK Project was born, he said.
The first two trips were taken in Lemert’s mother’s minivan, Lemert said. They decided their destinations with the flip of a coin.
In the past, they’ve taken Boys and Girls Club children to Walt Disney World, handed out free ice-cream after the Baltimore riots and bought dinner for those in need.
The bulk of their budget goes toward helping others, while a small portion goes to travel, food and a safety fund, Radelich said.
“So we survive,” Thatcher said. “We eat a lot of spaghetti.”
The group decided to do a college tour after their fourth cross-country trip, he said. UF was the fourth stop on the 10-school tour.
They came to UF to meet people and gain contacts while performing acts of random kindness.
“The first day at UF we tried to do a kindness scavenger hunt,” Radelich said. “We were in Turlington, so people already have their blinders on, but it felt like we were in New York City. People were not open to a conversation.”
He said he had hoped the three could have a larger effect on UF’s students.
“One thing I hope we can leave the Student Body with is a more open mind to whatever is happening around them,” he said.
In the future, they want to have university ARK chapters, Thatcher said. Each chapter would go on road trips to perform acts of random kindness.
“If people don’t believe that kindness can be fun, then they won’t participate,” he said. “We think we can catch the attention and move people from the place of, ‘This is just some random charity thing’ to actually thinking, ‘This is how I want to live my life.’”
