"Hello, from my heart."
"Hello, from my heart."
How would you respond if a total stranger said this while you waited at a bus stop or stood in the doorway of your home? Would you reply kindly or just ignore it? Grab hold of your purse? Clench your fist?
It's true that most of us are unaccustomed to total strangers engaging us in conversation or even simple niceties. And if we are approached, the immediate thought seems to be: "What are you selling — vacuums, or God?"
But for the last four years, motivational speaker/metaphysical teacher/ordained minister/local author Gary Schineller has tried to change our hurried cynicism with a smile and a simple, if hokey, phrase: "Hello, from my heart." With the help of local businesses, friends and neighbors, Schineller created a day where strangers say "hello" to strangers — and actually mean it. A day, he says, that reduced violent crime, saved lives and helped bring mankind closer to world peace.
I know, I didn't believe him either.
Schineller's journey to goodwill ambassadorship began in a small New York country town, a place where the children learned in a two-room schoolhouse and the town barber knew everybody by name.
"When you saw somebody, you waved at them. You said hello," says Schineller, 58, about the small hamlet. "If you said, 'Hi, how are you?' you were prepared to get an answer."
Even when he moved away to cities like Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit and New York City — places not exactly known for their friendliness — he maintained his cheery air. But it was after he moved to New Port Richey in 1998 that Schineller realized the world needed a dose of joy. An avid jogger, he noticed his neighbors always seemed to jog with their heads down, never looking up and greeting those they passed. For Schineller, who can't go past someone without looking him or her in the eye and smiling, this would not do.
"So I started greeting everybody with a smile and I'd find something different to say each time," he says. "It got to the point where all these people who were ignoring each other were looking forward to me coming."
But more important, he says, the good feelings spread. People started to talk to one another while doing yard work. Car passengers waved to each other as they passed. When the small subdivision started to feel like his old hometown, Schineller knew he was onto something.
On Aug. 1, 2000, with the help of some Pasco County ministers, Schineller launched the first Hello Day. It was a simple idea: Participants would go out of their way to say hello to every person they encountered in their daily routine.
"You could feel a difference when you went out that day," he says. "You could feel something in the air."
He repeated it the next year. Then, in 2002, he attempted to bring the day to eight west central counties, including Hillsborough and Pinellas. But "hello" no longer sufficed; he needed a warmer phrase that refused to be ignored, and Hello From My Heart Day was born.
He recruited local businesses to help him and set up a website. While Winn-Dixie and the Tampa Tribune agreed to spread the word, not everyone jumped on the idea.
"So many folks would look at me like 'What are you, nuts?'" he says. "I remember one publisher of one magazine locally was quoted in an interview saying she thought it was a silly idea. Well, the silly idea in the first year decreased violent crime by 22 percent over all eight counties in Tampa Bay."
By taking the violent crime call statistics from Aug. 1, 2001 and comparing them to Aug. 1, 2002, Schineller discovered crime declined by an average of 22 percent in seven of the eight counties that participated. And he got the same result, in varying degrees, every year thereafter. In four years, Hello From My Heart Day spread to 36 states and 26 nations. So this year, he expanded his new holiday to cover 11 days, from Sept. 11 to the United Nations' International Day of Peace on the 21st.
"The idea is to do it all year long," he says. "We're just getting there a little slower."
Even after hearing Schineller's story, I was a skeptic. Of course, Schineller's idea works in office environments and sleepy suburban neighborhoods. But how would the denizens of downtown Tampa — hurried professionals, Central Park hustlers, the homeless — react to the well-fed man in a white polo shirt with a heart on it? On Sept. 13, we chose to test Schineller's theory by hitting the pavement, from the library to the Greyhound Bus station to the Central Park Village projects. Our mission: to spread "Hello, from my heart" to every passerby, no matter how unreceptive they might look.
The downtown library's guard, a Hillsborough County Sheriff's Deputy, was our first victim.
"Hello, from my heart," Schineller said, with an almost maniacal grin on his face. The guard thought they knew each other. After explaining his mission, Schineller handed him a sticker: "Be a peace hero."
"Well, I'll be damned," the guard replied.
A pair of homeless men sitting on the building steps was next. Although they seemed surprised, they took to Schineller right away. They didn't even hit him up for change. Block by block, we walked the length of Tyler Street like two crazed Wal-Mart greeters, forcing passersby to wave or nod. A man waiting at a bus stop enthusiastically returned Schineller's greeting. "Hello from my heart." Our first snub — one of a very few — came at the Greyhound Bus station. A woman sitting by herself gave Schineller a cold glare.
"I don't push it at all," he said. "This lady, who obviously wanted to be alone, is dealing with whatever she's dealing with. She got the message. And that message will resonate inside of her in whatever way it's supposed to."
That's a major tenet of the philosophy, he said.
"It's important when you say 'hello, from my heart' that you are totally non-judgmental," he added. "So someone can tell me to jump in a lake." He paused and looked toward an imaginary person, "Well thank you. Hello, from my heart."
Our final destination was Central Park Village, the notorious 52-year-old barracks-like apartment complex on the strip of land between downtown and Ybor City. Ever since the 1967 riots, the complex has been steeped in crime and drugs. Recently, the Hillsborough County Commission approved a plan to redevelop the area, but it will require moving all 1,300 residents and demolishing the buildings. If anyone on our trip needed some friendly greeting, it was the residents of this sprawling complex.
As we rounded the corner onto India Street, several young men give us menacing looks. A caged pit bull barked ferociously. I was half-expecting my friendly rotund companion with the heart on his shirt to turn back. But he didn't; he even greeted the dog.
From young teenagers with boom boxes strapped to their bikes to a shabby middle-aged drug dealer, Schineller raised a hand and told them, "Hello, from my heart." And except for a few narrowed eyes, most people returned the hello — if not the "from my heart." We even recruited two new greeters: long-time residents Frances Collins and Monich Pope, playing dominoes on their front porch with some friends. After explaining the meaning behind the day, Collins and Pope yelled out to an unsuspecting bicycler: "Hello from my heart!"
We bade them goodbye and Pope warned us that, should we make another Hello From My Heart tour through the 'hood, don't come back too late at night.
"You might get robbed," she said, smiling.
This was the sketchiest situation Schineller's been in during Hello From My Heart Day, but it was also one of the most rewarding.
"Wasn't it great how they in embraced it in that little community?" he said.
The mean streets of Tampa are one thing, but could Schineller's idea stop, say, terrorists?
He says yes.
"A few days after our first Hello From My Heart Day, a New York Times headline read, 'Force may not win Iraq fight,'" he said, attempting to prove even the military is looking at other options. "We have the greatest power in the universe. And it all starts with our hearts."
This article appears in Sep 20-26, 2006.