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Press Releases:
York Awarded for Random Acts of Kindness that Touched Entire Middle School
MARATHON (562 words) – A dozen students at Marathon Middle School mobilized an entire body of 150-plus students to be the change they want to see in the world, as Ghandi has said. Teacher Linnea York’s language arts class started a random acts of kindness campaign with funding from a Monroe County School District serving learning grant to address teasing and bullying. She contacted Monroe Youth Challenge Program because of their expertise at fostering respect for and among students. The impact of the program made such an impression on Principal Harry Russell and the faculty that York was presented the Marathon Team Family Pride award at a recent faculty meeting.
Teacher Linnea York, second from left standing, holds an award her class received from the faculty at Marathon Middle School for their random acts of kindness campaign. Photo credit: MYCP
York’s class created a positive referral form teachers may send home to a parent as a way to acknowledge when a student has done something that is kind or helpful. In addition, they created a display in the hall using life-sized images of people connected heart to heart with red string and the slogan above it that read, “One Student Body. One Human Family.”
That display was defaced which saddened York’s students but motivated them to take their random acts of kindness program further. They made a presentation in each middle school class about being kind and asked each student to write a message on a heart.
“We are now stringing around 150 hearts with positive student quotes up in the library. We have learned the more people we involve in our program the greater the impact,” said York.
In addition to talking to other students, making the heart display in the library, and the original display in the hall, students put of posters that read “Be the Change” to remind other students to do random acts of kindness.
“These students motivated other students by their classroom presentations and their desire to make a difference in such a way that the other teachers recognized the project – that is bringing change,” said MYCP District Prevention Coordinator Michele Sutter, an expert in this type of campaign, provided classroom support to help students structure their project.
To track the effectiveness of the program, York’s students conducted a student survey and tally the results in a data base to review at the end of the school year.
Russell said, “There’s a positive energy with the kids. It’s more orderly. Middle school kids have a lot of energy and this campaign has helped some of them to stop and think before they act.”
Florida Learn and Serve has more than 75 federally-funded projects that engage 75,000 students in service-learning. Data have shown that this and other service-learning programs are not only cost-efficient for the state and local communities, but are beneficial to achieving state goals of higher academic achievement and model citizenship in Florida.
Monroe Youth Challenge Program is a project of the Monroe County Education Foundation to foster acceptance, respect, and success in the youth of Monroe County. To learn how to apply for a Florida Learn and Serve grant to tie students work into the community call MYCP Director Sunny Booker at (305) 293-1400 ext. 53319 or visit www.monroe.k12.fl.us/mycp.
