Maryland couple spreads kindness one sign at a time: 'Sometimes, you just need a reminder'
WESTMINSTER – Eric Miller and Tina Thomas are on a mission.
"The negative, angry people—they're loud. But, there's more of us and we just got to help raise our voice," Thomas said. "We just want to make it a kinder world."
Thomas and Miller are business partners and engaged to be married. The two began making signs to hang around town.
"Our music and yoga tribes were like, 'Oh, I'll buy a sign. I'll support your project. I'll put it on my porch. I'll put it on my fence.' And, so the business of kindness started," Thomas said.
Since then, signs started proliferating around Carroll County, Maryland, the U.S., and internationally.
"I see them everywhere. Literally up and down the East Coast. It's crazy how much I see them in Maryland," Lindsay Chiavacci of the Boys & Girls Club of Carroll County, which has a custom 'Be Kind' sign displayed in their window.
Chiavacci's parents took a sign to Dublin.
"I bought a sign for my son who had an Explosive Ordnance Command in the Persian Gulf," Bernie Vogel said outside JeannieBird Baking Company in Westminster.
To date, Miller has made more than 7,000 signs and personally installed nearly 3,000.
"There was a need for the representation of kindness and (Eric and Tina) put that signal of hope up like a 'bat signal'," Najee Banks of Southwest Baltimore said. "There should always be a hunger for kindness."
Thomas views the signs as a reminder to practice kindness.
"Start with yourself. Be kind to yourself first. Then, be kind to your housemates. Then, take it on the road," Thomas said. "Sometimes, you just need a reminder to see a sign. It is a subliminal thing, in a way."
Thomas and Miller expanded their kindness project to schools, libraries, and other events. They routinely host painting workshops for people to make their own signs.
To learn more about the Infinite Love Project and upcoming events, click here.
Go Behind the Lens on this story with Paul Gessler