Kindness Club Update
By Morgan Walsh
The East Greenwich High School Kindness Project, among one of many new clubs to start this year, has been keeping busy. In the midst of the holiday season, they are giving back to the EG community by organizing a winter necessity drive. The drive began December 7th and will continue till the 18th.
“The necessities drive is something we’ve done before and definitely want to continue to do in the future”, said Delaney Sullivan, chair member of the club along with Alana Modi and Brianna Hartman, “It’s something that everyone needs to keep themselves warm and healthy especially in the winter.”
Large bins are placed in the entryway of the school to collect donations from students as they enter the building in the morning. Each class has a different assigned items, with Freshmen taking on socks, mittens, and hats, Sophomores in charge of shampoo and conditioner, Juniors bringing in soap and deodorant, and Seniors handling toothbrushes and toothpaste. The drive is just one part of their mission. Some of their other projects include making cheerful rock paintings, uplifting posters, and selecting quotes for the morning announcements, held this year by the Kindness Project. Despite only being freshmen, the leaders of the club, Hartman, Modi, and Sullivan, prove themselves to be wise beyond their years as they work to remind other students about the importance of generosity, empathy, and compassion for others.
“As we get older people forget how important it is to be kind,” noted Modi, “It’s more of something that is enforced in us in elementary school and stuff. It’s more important as we get older to remember this message because there are certainly people out there who don’t exercise it and just remembering it can allow for a positive world.”
The trio first joined the project in Cole middle school before sharing it with the high school this year. Throughout 8th grade it only had 4 members along with advisor, Mrs. Bradshaw, but that number has now increased to 28 and many more opportunities have opened up for activities the club can take on.
“In middle school it was just the 4 of us so we had to do a lot more work to get our message out there,” explained Hurtman, “I just feel like having more people in the club is very rewarding, just as much as it is to see these projects go through and to see the process of spreading kindness to others.”
Though the highschool does offer new resources for the club, the leaders still felt hesitant to start the club this year. Starting a club can seem like a daunting task for any student, especially when they did not know any teachers to be advisors yet. Thankfully they were able to team up with Mrs. Steever, eghs’ library and media specialist.
“Through other teachers we’ve had in the past we’ve heard so many great things about her [Mrs. Steever]”, said Sullivan, “She was one of the first teachers I had met at the high school because I had to get my chromebook and everything. So I went to ask her about it [becoming club advisor] and she was just the most positive person ever. She was an obvious choice from the start.”
The kindness club offers a welcoming environment to students to work on making others happy and in turn brightening their own day. If there is ever a time in need of sunshine it is certainly now, during the stress of the Covid-19 pandemic and current political climate. Thanks to leaders like Alana, Delaney and Brianna hopefully students’ days at EGHS can become just a bit brighter.
If any students wish to learn more about the EGHS Kindness Project they can visit their website at : https://sites.google.com/student.egsd.net/eg-kindness-project/more-info?authuser=0
