Libertyville store owner's Pay It Forward program going strong

Sue Opeka hopes to change the world one heart at a time.

The Libertyville store owner is teaching girls to do something kind for one another and then passing on a silver heart. By doing so, she hopes girls will change the culture from bullying to showing kindness.

But Opeka stresses she has not created an anti-bullying program.

“I want to focus on what we want and not what we don't want,” she said. “What we don't want is the bullying. What we want is kindness, compassion, caring.”

Opeka opened her store, The Present Moment, at 521 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Libertyville, in July 2006 as a place to inspire the heart, mind and soul. It features artwork, jewelry and figurines, as well as books designed to inspire girls.

One day, she said, a girl came to the store and thanked her for offering the books. This girl shared her story about a “popular” girl, who everyone followed until one day. No one sat with her, played with her or invited her to parties. While the books help girls build self-confidence, Opeka determined they do not address the importance of girls treating each other with kindness.

So Opeka developed a program to encourage kindness and named it after the best-selling book by Catherine Ryan Hyde, “Pay It Forward.”

“I wanted kindness to spread, to move. I wanted this to become more of a way of life than the drama,” she said.

The program includes a kit, which costs $1 at the store, and includes three silver hearts. The girls are told to do something kind and to pass on the kindness and the charm heart to the recipient of their action.

Opeka welcomes groups to the store to talk and receive their kits, but she also attends school assemblies. The program is detailed on her website, thepresentmomentinc.com, and she said she has received calls from across the country about the kits.

“If I can get 10 girls to do this, I'd be so happy,” she said. “And this is 2,560 that is how many kits we've given out.”

Angie Holsen brought her third- and fifth-grade Girl Scouts to get kits. The girls learned it may not be easy to show kindness to someone who is not nice to them and make themselves vulnerable. But their involvement is inspiring other troops to join, too.

“It's a hands-on experience to see how their behavior can influence people around them,” said Holsen of Hawthorn Woods.

The kit also includes a card for the girls to share what they did. Once the girls have recorded their three acts of kindness, they are invited to bring the cards back to the store where they are displayed. In exchange, each girl receives a Blessing Ring necklace.

Among examples written on the cards, one girl opened a door for a lady at the mall. Some tell of sitting next to someone who is alone.

“One girl who was shy wrote a letter to three girls saying what she admired about them. She included a heart in each envelope and asked them to pass it on. The mother was so touched by this that she picked up a kit and wrote letters to three neighbors. All three neighbors called her, crying and said no one does this stuff anymore,” Opeka said.

The response has been overwhelming and emotional for Opeka. Brownie leaders weep, encouraged to see change after seeing cliques in their troop. One mom shared that after her fifth-grader joined the program, her daughter mustered the courage to give the girl who had bullied her a heart.

“She said because that girl was in the room and heard the same talk, she knew she could not be mean anymore. They are now good friends,” Opeka said.

Opeka hopes to create another program. Girls are often told how they should behave, but she sees this program as helping adults model how girls should behave.

“This is my small start at some level,” she said.