ESTEVAN - Hillcrest School's kind heart is beating more intensely as their Kindness Club is back in action after a long break.
The project, created and spearheaded by learning support teacher Shannon Brown, was first started before the pandemic, and soon was put on pause. But students' willingness to get back into spreading kindness motivated Brown to get it off the ground again.
"Looking around our kiddos, there are a lot of extracurriculars that are sports-minded. But for our students that aren't sports-orientated, they have the potential to have leadership skills and to do stuff, but sports was not in their interest range. So, the reason I made the club is so that other kids could be involved and do stuff and feel important and have a place," Brown shared.
With a push from the students, the club activities returned at the beginning of 2024, and Brown says she sees more kids joining all the time.
"The purpose of the club is just to do random acts of kindness," Brown explained. "We have approximately 50 members from Grades 1-8, but it's hard to keep track because every day they seem to get another kiddo.
"Kids were super excited to get this going … And it's really easy to do stuff when the students are really passionate about making a difference."
Officially, the club meets weekly, but with so many students and numerous projects underway, Brown said it seems that they get together more often.
Club members will be delivering flowers to long-term care residents at St. Joseph's Hospital on or around St. Valentine's Day. Earlier, they hosted a float fundraiser and were able to attract $485 to purchase the flowers.
"There's been a huge support from the families and the kiddos themselves. We received a lot of donations from families because they like what we're doing and they want us to do more of it," Brown noted.
In the past, they went around the community and collected rubbish to protect the environment, planted pots of flowers and left them at people's doorsteps, went to the mall and handed out $5 Tim Hortons gift cards to anyone there, filled vending machines at the leisure centre with coins and raised money for animals.
The Hillcrest Kindness Club plans on having random kind projects throughout June. They want to repeat their coin project and also hope to fill shopping carts at Clifton's No Frills with loonies. They are also going to hold a friendship bracelet trade show towards the end of February.
"We're going to invite a few other schools into our gym after school and with a food donation for the Warm Welcome Kitchen, they get to come in and the kids are going to make them a bracelet. And they can bring their own in and trade bracelets and make bracelets and make friends," Brown explained.
February is also their challenge month, when every day they have random acts of kindness challenges announced by the club ambassador. Feb. 12 is International Epilepsy Day, and club members are motivating their pals to wear purple shirts in support of those students living with the condition. They also plan to have an event for Pink Shirt Day, and they are working on a surprise for the school for Feb. 17, which is the National Random Acts of Kindness Day.
"We do just random, weird acts of kindness to brighten people's days," Brown said. "The kids have really huge plans, so we'll see what we can accomplish.
"We start talking about kindness ripple effects, so if you're kind to one person, they might be kind to another person, which creates a lot more people being kind and doing random acts of kindness."
Older students lead the group, and Brown says she notices how kids of all ages start spreading kindness of different types, not only through their joint projects but also in their daily lives outside school.
Students are eager to do projects, and the club is open to partnerships and support from local businesses and individuals.
