GREENFIELD — There was a brightly painted, glittery mailbox sitting on a ledge in the cafeteria at Greenfield Central Junior High School Tuesday.
Beside it were piles of pencils and slips of paper, each of which was emblazoned with a smiley face as bright as the mailbox and a simple message that waited to be completed and passed along.
“I was thinking of you today and wanted you to know that ….”
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Shelby Duncan and Avery Davis, two seventh-grade pals, scribbled out their notes, chattering as they did so. These smile-o-grams, as they’re called, were headed to each girl’s best friend, a simple note of positivity to others to end their school day with.
Tuesday marked World Kindness Day, a nationally recognized holiday of sorts on which people are encouraged to perform random acts of kindness for their friends, neighbors or even strangers.
At Greenfield Central Junior High School, teachers and students marked the day with a slew of events that aimed to remind everyone in the building that a smile, a friendly word, can go a long way in brightening someone’s day.
The events were organized by the school’s Acts of Kindness Club, a student organization led by teacher Denise Waymire. While the club has been around for about three school years, this is the first time it has organized a schoolwide celebration of World Kindness Day.
Acts of Kindness Club, as its name suggests, looks to brighten students’ days with good deeds; and their mission is more important now than ever, Waymire said, because too many young people, in Hancock County and across the country, are feeling the pains low self-esteem, depression and anxiety.
A series of mental-health convocations held at Hancock County schools this year revealed that local youth struggle regularly with such issues as well as thoughts of suicide.
The students surveyed at the convocations were mostly high-schoolers, though some junior high and middle school students participated.
Nearly 40 percent of those polled at the assemblies in the fall said they live with a high level of anxiety, and 16 percent of students said they felt more depressed than the average person.
More than half of local students said they know someone who struggles with thoughts of suicide. Some 35 percent admitted they had seriously considered ending their own life in the last year.
Roughly 23 percent said they wouldn’t talk to anyone about what’s troubling them.
After the convocations, school leaders and officials with Hancock Regional Hospital took on the task of making peer-counseling and positivity programs more available in schools.
The events at Greenfield Central Junior High Tuesday fit into that mold.
Teachers and staff wore matching purple T-shirts, emblazoned with #BeTheNiceKidGCJHS. Students got handfuls of candy as the walked into the building in the morning. At their lockers, they were greeted with handwritten notes from their peers, colorful sticky notes with slogans like, “Be yourself,” “You are great,” and “Just keep going” scribbled on them in marker.
Throughout the day, teachers could award students #BeTheNiceKidGCJHS wristbands whenever they noticed them being nice their classmates.
At lunch, students filled out smile-o-grams to send to their friends; and to end the day, students heard from motivational speaker Jerry Ackerman, a McCordsville resident who spoke to them about how their behavior — whether online or in person — could impact their futures.
Shelby and Avery, who sent smile-o-grams to their friends during their lunch period, said they know too well that some of their friends and classmates don’t feel like they’re important. Some kids get bullied; some have issues with their families that they’re forced to deal with; and some just don’t feel loved.
They, as much as their teachers, want to end that, they said. They want their school to feel like a welcoming place for everyone; they want their friends, their classmates, to know that they matter. They hope the feeling of positivity that ran through the school Tuesday stretches through the rest of the year.
That’s why they were so eager to take part in the school’s World Kindness Day events. Shelby is a members of the kindness club and even helped plan and set up some of the day’s activities.
Waymire said she started the Acts of Kindness Club and got its members to plan World Kindness Day because she wanted kids to be more aware of those around them, to realize that their classmates experience the same joy, happiness, hurts and hardships that they do.
She hopes those performing good deeds will see what those acts accomplished and be inspired — or inspire others — to keep helping. She hopes students who might sometimes feel forgotten or out of place will realize they’re loved and cared for. That they’re seen; that they’re not alone.
Amanda Everidge, Hancock Regional Hospital’s healthy community coordinator, played a key role in arranging the mental-health convocations at schools this fall and is now among those helping to carve out a plan for improving student wellness.
Everidge said she loves the idea of having a kindness club and wishes they were available to more students, in more schools.
She said any opportunity taken by districts to encourage positive self-talk and positivity is vital to helping them become optimistic adults.
“I don’t think (kids that age) hear enough of that,” she said.