By Katherine Thebeau
If you’ve experienced a little extra kindness in the community lately, perhaps you’ve felt the effects of the Spread the Kindness Campaign started by local Junior Girl Scouts Troop 3541. In light of the recent tragedies in our nation’s schools, the troop of nine fifth grade girls searched for a Bronze Award project, the highest honor a Junior Girl Scout can receive. The girls hoped to make a positive impact, and they made it their mission to spread kindness throughout the community. “They feel it is important to reach out to students and start a movement in the community to focus on kindness. It is their hope that future tragedies can be prevented if students work together to lift people up and remind others of the importance of kindness,” said troop leader Nicole Clay.
The troop tackled the project in three phases and spent about 25 hours sprinkling kindness around the community. As an initial step to raise awareness, the girls created a public service announcement/video and sent it to area schools. Five schools responded and played it during their morning announcements. In the video, the girls urged students to do at least one thing to make someone else’s day brighter, which could be anything from opening a door for someone, giving a compliment to a complete stranger, or leaving a note on a peer’s desk.
The girls created and distributed 2,000 positive Post-It notes on lockers, desks, bathroom mirrors and doors at Riverview High, Randall Middle and Burns Middle on March 23, which they accordingly planned for the day before the ‘March for Our Lives’ event held in Washington D.C. They also designed and laminated 150 “See Something/Say Something” posters which were disseminated in teacher’s boxes and high traffic areas at Riverview, Randall and Burns on Friday, April 6. In addition, during dismissal, the girls handed out 900 bite-sized kindness cards to students as they headed home. Their project culminated with one final display of Positive Post-Its/Bite-Sized cards at the girls’ own elementary schools (Bevis and FH Creek) the week of April 9-13. The troop lrecently received their Bronze Award.
The project may be complete, but their impact reaches far and wide. Their message is about changing hearts and minds in order to make schools and the world a better place. For info, visit www.gswcf.org.
