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Random Acts Of Kindness
"It doesn't cost anything to be Nice"
This project has been a legacy project for the past few years. Lucy Miller, Kendall Mann, and I decided to carry on this year. This project in the past has been a way to encourage students who need it. We figured this year, with everything being different due to Covid-19 it's a time that needs encouragement more than ever. Priya Chidambaram wrote in the article 'The Implications of COVID-19 for Mental Health and Substance Use' that 53% of adults reported their mental health being affected negatively due to Covid-19 in mid-July which is just about 20% higher than the reported 32% in March. I love art, and encouraging others so I knew this project was perfect for me. This year we are changing the project a little, in the fact that we are broadening the audience who we send the encouraging notes. In the past, this was just for encouraging fellow students, emphasising on the freshmen. Our goal this year is to not only help encourage all the students, but also expand to all the staff and faculty here at the high school. Pitch DayPitch day was August 14, 2020. This day was meant for presenting our project to the class along with members of the administration. It took only a few days to get ready, merely because we started the process of making encouraging notes on August 11th. It felt good to be able to share how we wanted to bring light. A counselor from our school suggested making a place to recommend people who need encouragement. Since then, we have been looking into ways of making this happen and help promote that as well. The ProcessWe started this project by making a student questionnaire and having Mr. Large, our teacher, send it out to all the students. Within this questionnaire we asked multiple questions. We asked questions such as 'What is your favorite color?' 'What hobbies and activities are you in?' to get to know them, followed by asking them what they need encouragement from. Within one week of having the form being opened, we have had 42 student responses. We started out, where I would paint paper with what the students liked and gluing that on the cards. After doing approximately just about seven, we realized the time taxation of that. They were very personable to each student, but with only me painting it was very overwhelming (especially with the 42 student responses). We changed the way we went about the card making process, where I carved some designs into the stamp pads and also used some of the left over designs from the past. We form and assembly line where Lucy cuts the cards, Kendall rolled the stamp pad and then pressed it on the card, and I would write the names in calligraphy. We all wrote on the notes. We have the system where Lucy and Kendall write the letters to the student, and I am working on writing the notes to the staff and faculty. We also hand deliver these during homeroom, with the help of Mr. Large we are able to find out the homerooms. For students who are doing school virtually or are in quarantine, we have been lucky enough to be able to send them their card we make. I also decided to make a remind where we send out daily encouragement and have been writing this in all the cards we hand out. I send out an initial welcome message to whoever joins, and every morning will send out a quote I get from Pinterest We are going to continue to send out reminds and notes and look into making a place for people to recommend people who need encouragement, for those who don't want to ask for encouragement.
We are also looking into more ways to make the notes more anonymously.
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