Students at Marine View Middle School in the Ocean View School District held the campus’ first “Kindness Week” earlier this month with events that included decorating and donating more than 350 T-shirts for children in the Huntington Beach Youth Shelter.
As part of Kindness Week, students held a series of Kindness Challenges, where students were encouraged to compliment five people, smile at 25 people, learn something new about a friend, say “good morning” to 15 people, help out a teacher or staff member, and leave a positive note to brighten someone’s day. Teachers and other school staff also participated.
Marine View’s Kindness Week, held the first week of May, was inspired by the Orange Department of Education’s One Billion Acts of Kindness initiative, which launched in May 2016.
The OCDE program aims to encourage all kind acts with the goal of reaching 1 billion. They can be recorded by visiting the website www.kindness1billion.org and clicking on the designated button, and there’s even an option for schools and community organizations to submit multiple acts at once.
Marine View students decorated the 350 T-shirts with messages condemning bullying, and promoting self esteem and individualism. School officials estimate that Marine View’s Kindness Week with the T-shirt donation yielded about 1,500 acts of kindness.
The One Billion Acts of Kindness campaign is now closing in on 10 million acts, so keep them coming.