Mary Latham is posting stories on her website, www.moregood.today, named for the idea that "there is more good than bad out there."

Rhode Island is the second state in a New York woman's journey to collect acts of kindness, whether random or otherwise, from people in all 50 states.

Mary Latham, 29, of Orient, New York, left Long Island on Oct. 29 in Old Blue, the 2008 Subaru that once belonged to her mother, and boarded a ferry bound for New London, Connecticut.

Her quest is to produce a book with an uplifting story and photo from every state. She wants to place these books in hospital waiting rooms, where, as she has experienced, spirits need lifting.

Offers of guest rooms have come in from nearly every state, including Alaska, so she won't have to pay for lodging while she gathers inspiring stories from the recipients of unexpected good. She also has a donations link for such expenses as repairs when Old Blue breaks down, which happened during her first week, in Connecticut.

Meanwhile, she's posting the stories, along with photos, on her website, moregood.today, named for the idea that "there is more good than bad out there."

Latham's journey actually started on Dec. 14, 2012. Working in Manhattan to pay bills while her wedding photography business grew, she was devastated by reports of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Connecticut.

Then a colleague stopped at her cubicle to tell her about his free coffee, courtesy of a guy who bought a $100 gift card and asked the baristas to spend it treating others.

"I immediately picked up the phone to call my mother," Latham says in the introductory video on her website. She started the conversation by talking about the coffee benefactor, and then talked about the shooting "in detail for at least 10 minutes" before being interrupted by her mother.

"She told me I couldn't focus on this tragic event alone, and I should think more about the man who had gone out that morning and bought the coffee for complete strangers."

Knowing that her mother's cancer had returned, and needing something "to keep me hopeful," Latham and a friend launched GrAttitude, an all-positive Facebook page, two months later, on Valentine's Day.

Eleven days after that, Mary Latham, her three siblings and their father gathered at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York to learn that Pat Latham, 61, had a week to live, if she was lucky.

"You just sit there in those rooms with your thoughts," Mary Latham said Wednesday.

But emails were coming in for the GrAttitude page, and the somber waiting room brightened when she read some of them aloud.

Meanwhile, her roommates vacated their Manhattan apartment to give all the Lathams a place to stay.

Latham's mother died on March 1, 2013.

As she grieved, Latham realized that the stream of stories brought in by changing her focus was helping her heal. She wanted more, and she wanted to share.

It's still early in the road trip, which she expects to take a year. To collect stories in Rhode Island, she'll spend Sunday night in Westerly and stay in Cranston and Cumberland through Nov. 12.

"No story is too small," she said, encouraging people to email her at moregoodtoday@gmail.com, and she'll arrange a meeting. One is about a young man who apparently overheard a woman pining for the day when she could give up salads and have "a delicious huge sandwich" like the one he was having. The young man stopped at her table to say, "I think you look fine. You should have that sandwich."

And no story is too big. The first one she posted on moregood.today (you have to click "Follow along" to see it) comes from an 89-year-old woman who was 18 months old when her father died on Christmas Eve, leaving a wife and eight children. When the youngest was 9, a great-uncle gave them his house, saying he didn't need it after his wife died.

The late Pat Latham may have gained some of her wisdom from her mother, Madeline Gillespie, the little girl who grew up in the gift house.

And Pat's daughter Mary, when asked if kindness is on the rise, answers:

"I think when you look for it, you see it way more."

— dnaylor@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7411

On Twitter: @donita22