Kindess Counts

St. John made the newspaper on Monday, February 20th.  In case you missed it, see below for the feature on our focus on kindness during Random Acts of Kindness Week

Local school promotes kindness with week of activities

St. John Lutheran took part in National Random Acts of Kindness Week
By Joe Callahan
Staff writer

Published: Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 10:29 p.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 10:29 p.m.

 

Six-year-old Evan Greene stood along a fence in the St. John Lutheran School courtyard last week and talked about what he has been doing to show kindness.

“I gave Aiden a basketball,” said the first-grader of his classmate, Aiden Turman. “I also held doors for people.”

Last week the private school participated in National Random Acts of Kindness Week in hopes of reminding its students to always take the kind approach.

St. John Lutheran spokeswoman Vanessa Baxley pointed to signs posted along most every hallway. The signs are to provoke an outbreak of campus kindness.

The signs included: “Say kind words,” “Hold the door for others,” “Take turns,” “Smile,” “Say hello,” “Nice matters,” “Help a classmate” and “Let others go first.”

Students learned the classic Bible verse in the book of Mark, Chapter 7, Verse 12: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

And last week, they all practiced what was preached.

“Our goal is to help students remember to be kind to others every day,” Baxley noted in a written release. “We are focusing on the ‘Golden Rule’ of treat others as you would like to be treated.”

Different classes on campus, which includes all grades through high school, focused on incorporating kindness in their daily routines.

Students wrote positive compliments about other students and focused on helping others. They also collected goods for various charities. Food items were used to complete full meals for needy families. One class even collected socks for soldiers serving overseas in Afghanistan.

Sophie Fisher, 14, said she learned about the troops in Afghanistan while studying world cultures and about the soldiers’ need for white tube socks.

“Socks are really important to them,” said Fisher, who later walked into her classroom to show off the pile of socks gathered, more than 300 pairs in all.

First-year Principal Jeffrey Knutson said he was pleased with what he witnessed throughout the week, specifically how students would help teachers clean classrooms to get ready for events.

Sophomore Caley Carbaugh, 15, said students are making an effort to say hello to students they may not know. The whole school is revitalized.

Students are “going out of their way to do something nice,” said Lynn Tomich, a first-grade teacher.