Kindness in the air at Westside
Tuesday June 24 2008
By Alanna Wilson, for the Banner
Visiting the Avalon Retirement Centre in Orangeville, students from the Kindness club play euchre with seniors. While this occurred, other group members chatted with residents.
A new club has formed at Westside secondary school and its members’ motto is “kindness is contagious.”
The Random Acts of Kindness Club was formed in December 2007 and since then its 30 members have been performing random acts of kindness throughout the school and community.
How the idea came about was “kinda odd,” says founding teacher Mike Pinkney. “I read a book about five students who travelled across Canada committing random acts of kindness. I read until three in the morning,” he says. The next day while jogging at a running club with fellow teacher Todd Lawler he told him about the book and said he wished they could do something like that at Westside. Why not? Todd asked. And the club was born.
“We had 10 people show up,” says Pinkney. “In a span of seven hours we went from conception to our first meeting.”
Since then its members, who meet every Monday to discuss their plans, have stuffed cheerful notes into lockers, brought coffee to teachers one winter lunch hour, provided oranges and refreshments to both basketball teams at a Westside senior basketball game and helped people carry groceries at Sobey’s on a lunch hour, among many projects.
“We had a couple of days where we went through the hallways handing out baked goods, and at first people were like ‘What? Did you drop it?’” Pinkney says.
There are many other projects on the go, such as selling Dilly Bars for a cause at an upcoming ultimate frisbee game at Westside, and fixing up an overgrown memorial garden at Parkinson public school.
“Everyone seems to be keen on everything,” Pinkney says of the members, whose ideas fly in Monday meetings. “There’s an overall excitement about doing kind things.”
The club members can be identified by their Superman-style t-shirts, which have the Superman crest on the front with the traditional S swapped with a K for kindness. On the back, is the motto “kindness is contagious.”
“Based on the fact that we weren’t very organized [the club] is more successful than I ever thought it could be. We now have reps at all grade levels,” Pinkney says, as well as three supervisors (Todd Lawler and Cheryl Kanters have joined Pinkney).
Pinkney encourages the community to keep paying it forward.
“It’s contagious,” he insists. “Spread it!”
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