Kindness blooms during Heritage Elementary's Kindness Week
Heritage Elementary celebrated its annual Kindness Week from April 19th-25th. The theme this year was “Grow Kindness,” and students were encouraged to be kind to their families, their environment, communities, friends, peers, teachers and staff, and themselves. Each morning during class, students watched YouTube videos put together by Heritage’s counselor, Matt Mallory, that gave them ideas on how to be kind to different people, places, and things.
Amelia Earhart once said that “A single act of kindness throws roots out in all directions and the roots spring up and make new trees.” As part of their fun for the week, students were tasked with recording their acts of kindness on leaves and then attaching those leaves to a tree to help it bloom. By the end of the week, the tree was in full bloom. In addition to putting leaves on the tree, students painted kindness rocks, which were generously donated by Rocky Mountain Landscape Products. Students painted positive messages on their rocks, which they then kept or gave away to someone who needed some kindness. In all, more than 600 kindness rocks were painted.
One family shared a story of how the kindness rocks impacted them, personally. Their child, a student at Heritage Elementary, brought home the kindness rock which he had painted at school. They put it on their porch as a reminder. Later that week, the mother ended up having an emergency appendectomy. When she returned home from the hospital, she found that the kindness rock had been moved to her bedside table. It was a wonderful example of kindness in action.
Heritage Principal Lance Robins described the week as an “absolutely wonderful experience” for their school. “It was really nice to reflect on acts of kindness and things we can do to improve other people’s lives,” he said. “It was a good feeling, good vibe throughout the whole school, and hopefully it was felt throughout the community as well.” Counselor Matt Mallory concluded, “Kindness is the antithesis of all of the bad things going on in the world. We don’t focus on those things at Heritage. We focus on kindness and I think that makes all the difference.”