North Fork Woman Brings 'More Good' To Her Hometown

NORTH FORK, NY — A North Fork woman who spent three years collecting stories of "More Good" and kindness from across the country is bringing a new effort close to home.

"This #holidayseason I have decided to launch a postcard project," Mary Latham wrote on social media. "It is a very simple concept:

- Do one act of kindness.
- Write it down (anonymously if you prefer) on a postcard (or any fun piece of paper if you’d like to make it more artistic and draw something)
- mail it to P.O. Box 455 Orient, NY 11957 or if you’d like to save a stamp and send your story with a photo to: 844-958-4397."

Latham said she plans to collect all of the stories and postcards and display them at Floyd Memorial Library in Greenport, beginning on December 14 — the birthday of "More Good."

"And amongst snowflakes on December 22 at 5 p.m. at First and South, we are going to celebrate all the GOOD!" she said.

Proceeds from the party on December 22 will be donated to students at Greenport and Southold High School "in honor of two kindness heroes from our community:Dylan Newman and Cindy Goldsmith-Agosta, who we lost this year," Latham wrote. "Please consider doing some good for them! For More Good! For someone you lost who you loved and always encouraged you to do good. And feel free to write their name on your postcard to share them with us."

Latham added: "For me, I do all of this for my mom. I traveled for three years to all 50 states to listen to people and their stories of kindness and resilience, and it all started because of one moment of kindness from a man at a coffee shop. I do not know him, he does not know me. But he changed my life. You may never know whose life you could impact and change with your kindness. I hope this season you are inspired to be that catalyst for someone else."

Latham told Patch she decided to do the project to get people inspired to do some acts of kindness during the holidays when there is so much need for good.

"I hoped to remind people of my own story and share with them how my entire journey was inspired by one act of kindness — they might be inspired to do their own act. Since you never know whose life you might impact or change with your kindness."

Latham said she is excited to involve students in the project because she believes that something that should be talked about more in general is figuring out ways to pay attention to other classmates and seeing where the need is — even if just offering an ear or a smile or compliment to someone in the hallway.

"I got a postcard the other day from a student in St. Louis who said she complimented another student's coat and the ended up having a 10-minute conversation — and the yhad never spoken before! It just showed how the smallest acts can have such an impact."

Latham said she choose Newman and Goldsmith-Agosta as the recipients of the donations from the party because she knows both families.

"I knew both Dylan and Cindy and they were incredibly kind and inspiring people who we lost way too soon. I wanted to give back to their families and do something to honor them since they were such special pieces of our community and epitomized More Good in every way."

Acts of kindess should be celebrated and the concept, embraced, she said.

"I think a lot of people sometimes feel weird saying what act of kindness they did — but I thought if they could take the time to write it down, anonymously if they would rather, and mail it in, it could become a guideline for others to find ways to do their own kindness. I think a lot of people want to help, they just don't know how. So if we had a whole bunch of ways displayed then people could get ideas and become inspired from them."

A joyful and exuberant crowd gathered on the Orient Causeway in 2019 to welcome Latham home.

In 2016, Latham packed up her car "Old Blue" and headed out on an epic cross country road trip to find stories of goodness and gratitude — all in memory of her beloved mother, whom she lost to cancer.

Latham, whose made headlines and memories with her "More Good Today" project, drove Old Blue, covered with stickers reflecting her many stops along the way, across the causeway Saturday, raising her hand in triumph out the sun roof as she headed to the Orient Firehouse for cake, champagne, and a celebration of a journey of the heart.

The many who bundled up and stood ready to welcome Latham home were inspired by her journey: "My wife Ellie and I had the pleasure of first meeting Mary at an impromptu writing workshop that was held at our home in June of 2018," Rick Coffey said. "When it was her turn to read her work, Mary briefly spoke about her mother, her untimely passing and the words her mother gave that inspired her to pursue and write about 'More Good' in the world. The passage she read that night was deeply moving and I remember whispering to Ellie how inspiring it was and something so necessary and needed in the world today."

Along the way, Latham captured her experience with words, stories and images, chronicling the kindness and acts of pure goodness she found in every corner of the country.

Her "More Good Today" project includes a Facebook page as well as a website and a newsletter where she has collected stories of people touching lives by paying it forward. All told, she visited 154 homes, traversed 43,000 miles and visited 50 states.

Latham, said coming home sparked a sea of mixed emotions. "What I've seen is a million broken hearts across a country that is desperate for kindness," she said. "Hearts that are trying incredibly hard to keep going after being shattered by tragedy or immense hardship. That is our country. Beautiful and very, very broken. And the only real way we are going to survive is by actively showing our goodness and our hearts as much as we possibly can."

Latham said she emerged from the journey forever changed. "I've become incredibly grateful for what I already have and much more aware of the impact the small moments have on someone," she said. "The tiniest moments of kindness shown are the ones that often have the ability to change the entire trajectory of someone's life. It's really how my entire story started. One cup of coffee bought for a stranger on December 14, 2012."

Describing that day, Latham's story returns to her mother, who was the heart and meaning behind every mile she traveled.

Latham's mother, Pat, was only 61 when she died after a long battle with breast cancer. But even when facing the most daunting fight of her life, Pat focused on finding the beauty and hope in the world and not letting tragedy and despair overcome, Latham said.

Latham will always remember words of wisdom from her mom. When Latham, who was working as an assistant at a continuing legal education firm in New York, learned about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in 2012, she was in tears.

"I called my mom. I used to call her every day when I got to work," she said. Crying, she shared her grief about the Newtown tragedy. Then she told her about a stranger who had bought her co-workers coffee at Starbuck's, paying it forward.

"She told me that there were always going to be these terrible things that happen. You have to focus on that other story, that person who bought coffee for others. Those are the things you have to focus on," Latham said.

In those words, an idea was born.

Over states and endless miles, there are stories that stand out, Latham said.

"The M&M story will always stand out the most for me," she said. "It is yet another example of the value in small acts, and the reminder that we are all capable of doing them. And, hopefully, the encouragement to do them more often."

Latham then retold that story, as it was told to her: "I was about 24 years old working as a teller at the Washington Trust Co. on Block Island for the summer. It was a crazy, busy day, and I was tired, stressed and grumpy. My customer — a young woman around my age — and I exchanged pleasantries. She mentioned I looked stressed out. I casually answered it was nothing some M&Ms couldn't cure. I cashed her check, and she went on her way. When I looked up to call the next customer a half-hour later she walked up and handed me some peanut M&Ms. ... I'm 52 now, and I've never forgotten that day. I've shared the story with my children a few times over the years so they remember just how powerful a simple act of kindness can be. I believe that her kindness to me that day and the effect it had on me has led me to be a kinder gentler soul."

During every hour and mile she traveled in Old Blue, her mother's Subaru, Latham said she has felt her mother by her side.

"She was there — she had to be. There's no other reason I'd be crossing back over the causeway after what, and how, I did what I did by myself if she wasn't watching over this entire trip," Latham said. If she were able to speak to her mother just once again, "I'd tell her I miss her, and 'thank you.'"

After hearing stories from voices nationwide, Latham has a message for those struggling to find good in seemingly hopeless lives and situations.

"Let people help you," she said. "They want to help, and often they don't know what to do. If you're going through a hard time, let those offering to assist the chance. We need each other."

But if a person is feeling hopeless because of what's going on around them in the world, they should start searching for the good, she added.

"You have to look for it," Latham said. "If you're watching the news, or sitting on your phone, or surrounding yourself with people who make you feel small … you won't find good. It's a choice, every single day, to search for that good. It's all around us. The moment we put down the distractions is the moment we start looking around and seeing what's going on in our communities. We start noticing ways we can help. Instead of complaining about the problems, look at them as opportunities. We can be part of the solutions. Really, they're giving us purpose. If you can't find good, be it."

Latham's story began long before she began collecting the experiences of others. In 2009, Latham said, when she neared the pinnacle of Pike's Peak with her mother, the world was open before her, filled with opportunity and promise.

She had just graduated college and was about to move to Manhattan and live with her two sisters — and yet, she was stressed about finding a job. A few months later, she began working and pursuing her passion, photography, in her free moments.

"A few years later, cancer took my mom away. And from that point on, I made a promise to myself: I'd only do things that make me happy. No matter how scary or how ridiculous they seemed. Because fear for me was losing her. And I managed to make my way through that time. There isn't a second I don't think of her, miss her, wish she was able to see all she has inspired me to do on this journey ... but I realized something after she died. Fear didn't have much meaning anymore."

Of course, she said, she was scared starting the road trip, especially when the car makes a weird sound and she's all alone in the middle of nowhere. "But they're just fleeting moments. Brief little attempts to derail me and send me back home. I ignore them. Daily," she wrote.

Latham left the North Fork on Oct. 29, 2016 — appropriately, in her mother's car, on a journey to honor the woman whose loss forever altered her life. She packed her mom's 2008 blue Subaru Outback and headed to 50 states, where she has met with people and heard their stories about giving back, about good and positivity during a time when the political landscape was marked by turmoil and negativity.

Latham described how her mother's death colored every page in the book of her life."After my mom passed way, I quit my job at a law firm in Manhattan and bought a one-way ticket to the Caribbean and changed my life," she said. "It was brave and crazy. But it was mostly the best decision, the best thing I could have possibly done."
Later, she lived in Italy for a few months.

When her mother was first diagnosed with breast cancer, Latham was only 13 years old. "I attempted to run away, because I thought, 'This means she dies.' I didn't understand."

And over the next years, Latham said her mother triumphed many times over cancer's setbacks."She kept getting through all of it, and I thought she was always going to be fine, and fight through it, because she was so strong."

But as the cancer worsened in 2013, Latham found comfort and strength in sharing stories sent to her from individuals about random acts of kindness, including a roommate who lost a phone in a cab but saw it returned, to her door, by a good Samaritan.

Eleven days after she launched her project aimed at finding good and gratitude, Latham's mom had surgery at Sloan Kettering, a surgery where there had been "only a small chance of it going wrong. But it did." Only hours later, Latham and her family were gathered in that waiting room, during the worst minutes and hours of their lives; her mom died at midnight on a Friday.

"We were all in that waiting room, and I'd gone to my email and read them a few stories" from those sharing stories of acts of kindness, Latham said. "We were all just crying, but those stories were nice, a little piece of hope during a really horrible time."

Latham, who'd promised her mother that she'd turn the idea for the project into a book one day, has held fast to the hope that the published book, after her road trip, will be shared among hospital waiting rooms.

"People are in hospital waiting rooms, during the worst times of their lives, waiting for the people they love so much to die," she said.

The book is meant to offer hope and will be dedicated to her mother, Latham said.

And now, she's home, back into the arms of family and friends who have followed her every step of the way — and sharing More Good in the very hometown who's cheered her on from the start.

"I began my journey crossing the Orient Causeway and boarding the ferry to my first state, Connecticut, three years ago. I figured since it was such a big moment for me to be crossing back over, I'd invite people in my community — a community who has supported and shown so much love for my mission— to be there with me," Latham said.