Capozzi

Last night, I visited a nonprofit called HUE — Hearts Unknown Education — with its board chair, former Bend Mayor Bruce Abernethy. The experience was at once both exhilarating and sad.

HUE helps guide and support young people – some as young as five years old — who struggle emotionally with anxiety, depression, questions around identity or even thoughts of suicide. They offer free bilingual “creative wellness” classes — painting, drumming, crafts, singing, meditation, somatic breath work plus a whole lot of love — that provide valuable experiences in a safe and caring environment.

I watched the group’s executive director, Nicola Carpinelli, and volunteers — artists, mental health professionals and others — help the kids express themselves, connect with one another and learn to appreciate their special talents and perspectives.

They’re producing extraordinary results. One parent told a poignant story — she said:

“When my son started talking about how he was feeling sad and didn’t know why, it was terrifying. He was only 12, and he told us he had thoughts about hurting himself. But as soon as we started taking him to classes at HÚE, things changed.”

I felt deeply moved by the empathy expressed by the organization’s executive director, board members and volunteers. These extraordinary adults give their time and money to help these children — cute young girls and boys who could easily be our children or grandchildren. I was moved by their willingness to give of themselves to help those less fortunate.

But the visit also brought to the fore another feeling — one of frustration and, frankly, anger.

Just in the last week — and for the months and years since the first term of Donald Trump — we have watched the death of empathy among a huge segment of the American population.

How can so many people in our country lack empathy by the plight of the young woman in Texas whose life and future has been attacked by unreasonable public policy around abortion?

Where is the empathy for those less fortunate who face reductions or elimination of critical services by heard-hearted politicians who will cut budgets for those services to line the pockets of corporations and the rich, based on the false promises of “trickle-down economics?”

Where is the understanding for people, whoever they love or whoever they choose to be?

And where, in their hearts, lives any concern for the plight of people in Ukraine and Israel, who face invasions to their countries by terrorist regimes?

I came into adulthood in the 1960s, and my generation thought we had set the nation in motion toward a new, more empathetic, future. The civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the anti-war movement and the rise of gay rights all pointed toward a more caring, understanding future for America.

If you had told me then that our nation would face this horrible attack on empathy today, I could not have imagined that outcome. People dug into these ugly positions should take an evening to visit the little kids being helped by HUE.

If more of these hard-hearted so-called “conservatives” spent a little time seeing people spend their time and money caring about the needs of strangers, maybe they’d see the folly of their ways.

And if, like me, you’re moved by the contributions of this special organization, you can help. Just visit www.ilovehue.org, to find a way.

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