The Great Kindness Challenge is upon us, Jan. 28-Feb. 1! Over 10 million students from nearly 20,000 schools around the world participate in the challenge, dedicating one week to performing as many acts of kindness on campus as possible.

The goal of the challenge is to create a “proactive and positive bullying prevention initiative that improves school climate and increases student engagement.” PreK-high school students join in, using the week as a powerful tool to actively engage the community in creating a culture of compassion, acceptance, unity, and respect.

This week, all students are encouraged to participate in performing good deeds and being kind to others. Some of these actions include complimenting someone, giving someone a hug, or writing a kind note to someone.

The Great Kindness Challenge partners with National School Climate Center, Character Counts!, World Kindness Movement, and many more to promote a peaceful environment not only during the challenge week, but throughout the year. The challenge occurs about two weeks before Random Acts of Kindness Day, Feb. 17, where people devote a day to showing kindness at random moments all day.

The junior high leadership class took on the acts of kindness list by separating the days with quotes and themes. The middle school students encourage each other to get involved by performing the acts of kindness on each day’s list.

Diane Blowers, junior high leadership teacher, helps her students participate by presenting them with a quote relating to the specific day and a list of challenges to try and accomplish.

“This is my first year taking the acts of kindness week over for the junior high,” Blowers said. “I’m really excited to lead these kids and get the junior high involved. We have different quotes for Tuesday through Friday that remind the students to serve one another and be kind. Each morning the kids will receive a list of kind acts and if they complete the sheet, they will be entered in a raffle to win Stuff Mart money.”

For more information on The Great Kindness Challenge, contact Diane Blowers in Room 626 or through her email. The following video by freshman Austin Petersen outlines the campus junior high participation in the Jan. 28-Feb. 1, 2019, event.

The Great Kindness Challenge from The Feather Online on Vimeo.

For another video, watch Promo: Fly Me to The Moon.

For another article, read Respecting Leadership.

The author can be reached by via email: Austin Petersen, Instagram and Twitter.