By Meryl Feld / Editor
The Kansas City Jewish Community will never forget April 13, 2014. The day a murderer thought he took the lives of three Jews. He was wrong.
Mindy Corporon lost her 14-year-old son, Reat Underwood, and her father, Dr. William Corporon when a white supremacist murdered them outside of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City. The life of Terri LaManno was also taken by the murderer, near Village Shalom.
In response to that day, Mindy Corporon created Faith Always Wins, a foundation with a mission of encouraging dialogue that betters the world through kindness, faith and healing. For six years now, the foundation has held its annual SevenDays®-Make a Ripple, Change the World event in April, near the anniversary of the murders.
“This weeklong event promotes kindness and interfaith dialogue offering programs and activities for the entire community with daily themes,” the organization told The Chronicle in a written statement, “Numerous communities, groups and organizations participate in the effort that embraces our differences and unites us to work for good.”
“The fact that Mindy has been able to create an event that has endured, that has so many thousands of people engaged and that really focuses on generating a positive message about kindness, understanding and learning about other people, has just been really wonderful,” Alana Muller said.
In April 2014, Muller was on the boards of both the J KC and Village Shalom. Muller is this year’s SevenDays Others Day co-chair. She has been part of the organization’s leadership team from the beginning.
“I felt very moved to do something, anything, to try to turn what was a horrible situation into finding some glimmer of hope and positivity,” Muller said.
Traditionally, the event is a series of in-person programs, including daily activities usually held at a variety of houses of worship. The SevenDays programs usually attract anywhere from 200 to over 1,000 people, bringing thousands of people together over the course of a week.
For Muller the shift to digital expands SevenDays’ reach in ways they never anticipated. “The fact that we can do that I think is exciting,” she said, “In most cases we can record the event and people can join from wherever they are in the world.”
“It is a desire to make sure that love overcomes hate. And the SevenDays event encompasses a variety of acts and actions to help educate people that there’s more that unites us than divides us,” David Stein said.
Stein is this year’s SevenDays Walk co-chair. He has been involved with the organization for a few years. While many SevenDays events were converted to a digital format, the walk has been postponed to a later time when it is safe to publically gather together.
The walk was supposed to begin at the Liberty Memorial, with around 1,000 people expected to attend. The main goal of the walk is simply bringing people together. “The walk is really a symbolic movement of unity,” Stein said, “We just really celebrate coming together and hopefully moving onward.”
Stein is disappointed with the change in plans, but wants the community to know that, “It’s delayed. It’s not cancelled. We’ll find a time that’s appropriate… It’ll be great. It’ll be successful. Maybe it’ll be bigger than we even originally expected.”
Both Muller and Stein had personal connections to those who were murdered, which sparked their involvement in SevenDays.
Muller wants the community to know that SevenDays is for everyone. She said, “What I want people to know is that there’s a place for them, there’s an opportunity to learn, there’s an opportunity to share. And that it will make us a stronger community.”
“It’s about educating people who may be isolated in their own thought processes, their own belief systems, whatever they were raised with. It’s about breaking those down and opening it up so that people just have a better understanding of other people,” Stein said, “It really just speaks to tolerance.”
“Whatever people do, I hope they’ll find at least one way to get involved with SevenDays and to help us make a ripple,” Muller said.
Alana Muller is a member of Congregation Beth Shalom. She is involved with Village Shalom, the Jewish Community Foundation, the Federation and MCHE. She is on the board of JCRB|AJC.
Dave Stein is a member of The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah. He volunteers for a variety of congregation activities.
To get involved with SevenDays check out GiveSevenDays.org and/or the GiveSevenDays Facebook page.