Before leaving for February Break, Brookside Primary School celebrated Random Acts of Kindness Week, (RAK) where students created pieces of art to send into the community and notes to appreciate those around them while honoring the importance of kindness.
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, based out of Denver, Colorado, is a nonprofit focused on spreading kindness in schools, workplaces, and communities. It holds a national Random Acts of Kindness Week each February, running from Valentine’s Day to February 20.
“We wanted to broaden kindness around Valentine’s Day,” said BPS co-principal Sarah Schoolcraft, “by doing a little bit more than exchanging Valentines.” The school has three core tenets: be safe, be respectful, and be responsible; kindness is the unofficial fourth. The week takes “a while” to plan, but it’s something that Schoolcraft “is willing to put effort into, something that really fills my bucket… and there’s lots to draw from with the national organization.”
Photo by Claire Pomer
This year’s RAK week fell the week before the district’s February break. The week leading up to vacation is reserved for the school’s Spirit Week—to boost morale during an otherwise stagnant week—and each day has its own wacky dress code, ranging from Creative Hair Day to Inside Out and Backwards Day (where students were encouraged to wear their clothes inside out or backwards).
This year, school counselor Kately Mosher found several ways to involve fourth graders, the school’s oldest students. She reached out to the fourth-grade teachers with several leadership opportunities to which students could be nominated. “We want to empower them to be the role models they are,” said Mosher. Fourth graders sometimes experience fatigue, not unlike senioritis, after spending so many years in the same place, and “sometimes, it can feel a little stagnant for them.”
On Monday (Creative Hair Day), students decorated coffee sleeves to send to Black Cap Coffee & Bakery with sweet pictures and words of affirmation. “What do you think someone would want to see when they sip their coffee or hot cocoa?” Mosher prompted the students. The table was set up inside the lobby, and students could decorate the coffee sleeves throughout the school day. At the end of the day, Mosher and a group of students delivered the coffee sleeves to Black Cap. The handmade coffee sleeves can be found on the pickup counter.
Last year, BPS students created a community art project to send to the recently opened Waterbury Family Shelter. Schoolcraft delivered the project herself, but she wanted more student involvement. She reached out to Black Cap earlier this year, and they were “really excited to partner.” This is the first year creating coffee sleeves for RAK Week, but both Mosher and Schoolcraft emphasized the importance of extending their celebrations beyond the school and into the community, creating more connections with the school.
On Tuesday (Comfy Cozy Clothes Day), students created watercolor hearts as part of a mural sent to the Waterbury Public Library. Students painted squares with hearts—some accompanied with messages—and the squares were arranged to read “BPS” with a heart at the end. Mosher and a separate group of fourth graders delivered the mural to the library on Thursday.
On Wednesday (Inside Out or Backwards Day), students wrote or drew thank-you messages to someone in their community. These were delivered to their intended recipients personally.
On Thursday (Wear One Color Day), students became the “I” in “Kind” by posing for a picture with a mural in the lobby. Sporting all sorts of accessories, like comically large heart glasses and fake mustaches, students posed solo and with their friends. After a fire drill later in the morning, students gathered on the school’s soccer field in the shape of a heart, photographed by Gordon Miller of the Waterbury Roundabout.
On Friday (Blue and Gold Day), students reflected on their own kindness by writing down one kind act they performed over the week, and the pieces of paper were brought together to create a chain of kindness.
Throughout the week, a group of fourth-graders conducted interviews with students, asking questions about kindness and Brookside. Mollie Deane, Sawyer LaRocca, and Beck Lea, who are each in different classes, visited classrooms and propped an iPad up in the hallway to record themselves asking several questions, some of which Deane had helped brainstorm: Why do you love Brookside? Why is it important to be kind? What are some ways that you can be kind? What is something good that has happened to you this week?
The three students pieced together the footage, along with some photos of students practicing kindness throughout the week, to create a video to be shared at an all-school morning meeting after returning from break.
“It’s called Random Acts of Kindness Week, but it feels very highly structured,” said Schoolcraft. “The structure needs to be in place to get people thinking, ‘Oh, how might I be kind?’ It lays the groundwork for future spontaneous acts of kindness.”
In the future, she (along with co-principal Chris Neville) hopes to create “continued student leadership, especially with fourth graders.” After debriefs with the fourth graders involved in these leadership opportunities, she aims to “plant more seeds” of kindness.
