Students at Medinah Intermediate School Celebrates Valentine's Day with Kindness

Students at Medinah Intermediate School Celebrates Valentine's Day with Kindness

Medinah Intermediate School celebrated Valentine's Day in an afternoon of being friendly, generous and considerate. All 205 students participated in practicing kindness.

Afternoon of Kindness

Students engaged in five projects to make "the whole world a little bit better," during the first schoolwide Afternoon of Kindness.  It is then, followed by a message of a line in the book "Each Kindness," which teachers read to students during an assembly before the volunteering began.

The students had a lot of activities that encouraged good deeds

The students had a lot of activities that encouraged good deeds: packed lunches for clients of the homeless services agency DuPage Pads; tied fleece blankets for Project Linus; pet adoption bandannas for the Almost Home Foundation in Schaumburg and Animal House Shelter in Huntley; peeled Crayons for the recycling organization SCARCE to melt into larger Crayons for people with special needs; and painted "kindness rocks" that will be spread across the community. Each activity was selected by students to be hands-on. According to third-grade teacher Kelly Reinmann, they wanted something that kids will make themselves.

The kids were all over it

For the past two years, the Afternoon of Kindness was conducted only by the school's youngest students. Then they got the entire building involved along with parents and community members, such as a small team of Roselle firefighters and District 11 Superintendent John Butts.

"The kids were all over it. They were hands-on and doing research and choosing charities." Butts said.

“Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world.”

- Annie Lennox