Just before World Kindness Day Nov. 13, Indian Lake Middle School Kindness Club members got the chance to tell state leaders about their efforts to make their school a better place.
Earlier this week, members of the ILMS Kindness Club took part in the Ohio School Boards Association Student Achievement Fair during the OSBA Annual Capital Conference at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. This is the first time a group from Indian Lake Schools was selected to present at the event, which serves as a training and development experience for school board members from districts across the state.
Kindness Club creators, ILMS Guidance Counselor Mandy Tidwell and eighth-grade paraprofessional Hillary Wickline, along with Co-Principal Erin Miller, accompanied three founding members of the Kindness Club, eighth-graders Lynni Bristow, Makayla Motter and Amelia Schmiedebusch.
They set up their booth and talked to hundreds of board members, school administrators and state level officials as well, including OSBA Southwest Region President Linda Johnson and our region’s State Board of Education representative, Linda Haycock.
“A lot of people came through. They wanted to know how we spread kindness and if it makes an impact,” Makayla said.
“We gave people special cards that spelled out our mission and listed some of our activities. That was helpful to be able to remember them all,” Amelia said.
Since its start during the 2018-19 school year, ILMS Kindness Club members have been busy. About 40 members of the club have created positive signs that hang throughout the building. They periodically make notes with positive messages to post on each student’s locker and even write encouraging notes to staff.
During Kindness Week in February, they created videos with examples of easy ways to help other students and they brought in donuts for the entire student body.
Tidwell said there were about a hundred other groups at the Student Achievement Fair, but only one other similar to the ILMS Kindness Club.
“It’s great to see that we are doing something meaningful and different. The club is something that we know supports our social-emotion learning, which is so important in the middle school years.”
Lynni hopes that other schools are inspired to create their own kindness clubs.
“My favorite thing is when we write the notes for lockers because it’s great to see everybody come into class with a smile,” she said.