By Angela H. Hill

Bus drivers and librarians were thanked.

Thank-you cards were made. Flowers were brought to the office staff. Trash was picked up. The hallways were filled with friendly greetings.

While kindness is emphasized every week of the year, students at Woolwine and Blue Ridge elementary schools were extra-special nice to school staff, teachers and fellow students last week as part of an international effort called The Great Kindness Challenge.

“Maybe it’s just me being positive,” said Ben Coulter, who serves as guidance counselor for both schools, “but I felt like there was a positive change. Everyone seemed more happy and kind.”
This is the first year any county schools have participated in the January 23-27 challenge. Blue Ridge Elementary School Principal Sandra Clement said she ran across the idea in a Twitter feed for educators, and emailed information about the program to Coulter.

Coulter took it and ran with it, he said, passing out a checklist of 50 challenge items to grades one through seven; and a smaller list with pictures to pre-k and kindergarten students. The checklist included suggestions such as “smile at 25 people,” “help a younger student,” “make a kind poster for cafeteria staff,” and “hold the door open for someone.”

At both elementary schools, students who completed a certain number of challenges earned privileges such as being allowed to wear crazy socks and hats to school.

The Great Kindness Challenge has been presented each year by Kids for Peace, a 501(c)3 organization founded in 2006 by California high-school student Danielle Gram and Jill McManigal, a mother and former elementary school teacher.

What started as a neighborhood group of children who wanted to make the world a better place and create a more positive, unified and respectful school environment, grew to become an international organization. Today, The Great Kindness Challenge is undertaken by 5 million students in more than 8,000 schools in 61 countries.

Together, they perform more than 250 million acts of kindness.

“At the heart of The Great Kindness Challenge is the simple belief that kindness is strength,” reads a description on GreatKindnessChallenge.org. “We also believe that as an action is repeated, a habit is formed. With The Great Kindness Challenge checklist in hand, students have the opportunity to repeat kind act after kind act.

“As kindness becomes a habit, peace becomes possible,” reads the site.

Plus, celebrating and encouraging kindness can marginalize bullying by emphasizing positive behavior. Coulter said that bullying is not a big problem at either Blue Ridge or Woolwine, but he hopes that the spirit of kindness continues throughout the year nonetheless.

“This is looking at bullying in a different way,” Coulter explained. “We always teach kids, ‘Don’t bully. Don’t bully. Don’t bully.’ This puts a positive spin on the issue instead.”

Both Coulter and Clement said they hope to encourage students to undertake The Great Kindness Challenge again next year. This year went well, both said, and perhaps next year they can kick off the week with an assembly and work on helping pre-k and kindergarten students better grasp the kindness concept.