Student Council hosted an event from March 21 to 24 where students were given buttons from teachers for their acts of kindness. The students then passed the button on to other students when they saw them participating in an act of kindness. At the end of the week, students voted for their peers who had a kindness button at one point in the week to receive a prize.

The idea started when a teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous, looked around and saw a lot of negativity in the world. This sparked them to make a change. They typed kindness into the search bar of an internet browser and one of the searches that popped up was “Kindness Contagion”.

Rather than passing around COVID-19, this teacher came up with the idea to spread kindness instead. Dean Betsy Murphy feels the same way as the teacher who proposed the contagion in regards for why WA needs it; she feels there needs to be more positivity after the past few years.

“I think that we’ve spent way too long […] behind masks. And I think people, you know, want to make sure that we saw smiles,” Dean Murphy said.

The anonymous teacher did more research on kindness and found that it is a cure-all for many things. There are many health benefits to kindness including counteracting depression and anxiety, which were only worsened by the pandemic. According to this teacher, recent events all around the world and in our own community have shown that everyone needs a bit more kindness in the world. 

The teacher also realized that kindness is a win-win situation for both people involved. The person doing the kind act feels good about themselves and the person on the receiving end feels appreciated. No matter how big or small the act is, it makes someone feel special.

“We’re just hoping that we would remind people that doing little things still count and they count more now that we know we’re not taking things for granted,” Murphy said.

So, this teacher took action and decided to bring their idea to Murphy. From there, the idea of passing around buttons for acts of kindness was born. These acts of kindness include complimenting others, helping others with school work, throwing away litter, or sitting with someone who might be lonely. 

Student council has full intent to host this event again. The only thing they would do differently is give more time for advertising.

“[Sophomore] Ally Lombardo did a great job putting out the video and explaining things, but I didn’t give her much time to work on it [the project],” Murphy said. “So what we do differently is just give more of a heads up and more advertising on it to get [the] word out”

The overall purpose of this event is to encourage others to be kind without expecting a reward. Spreading positivity and lifting spirits are also goals of this event. Student council hopes to reverse the trend of negativity and work towards a more compassionate community.

“I think it was just fun to have something fun to talk about and to hear what other people have done to get their pins,” Murphy said.