Local student Felicia Seybold, a 6th-grader at William Henry Middle School in Dover, DE, was just named the grand prize winner in the Be Kind People Project's national student writing contest. Writing on the topic "There's Always Time for Kindness," Felicia proves that she is not only kind; she's wise beyond her years. As a result of her efforts, her school was awarded $1,000, and every single William Henry student received a prize, including a silicone sports watch touting the Be Kind People Project's motto that "Every Minute Counts" when it comes to cultivating a culture of kindness. Here is Felicia's winning entry.
Can you believe that in my school, I see fights in the lunch room at least 1 time every week? And since one of my teachers does card flipping, that there is at least 2 cards flipped every day? When the teacher isn't listening, or we are out at recess, kids talk about fighting each other! This is stuff I want to stop. If we take time to think about what we do, or control our anger, the world (or at least the classroom) would be a better place. If we use our brain more positively, then the people who get in trouble might think about what their reactions are to other people. If people give 1 compliment for every threat or thing they don't like, maybe they won't get on people's nerves! We need to find a way to show people to be kind . . .
Kindness is contagious. But so is meanness. Spreading a good attitude is important, especially if you want to turn the world's attitude 
, not 
. The first step in being kind is not being crabby! I know that if someone was crabby, but did kind acts, I would notice the attitude, but not the actions. The second step is to not be afraid of doing kind acts for other people. If you were afraid of doing kind acts for people, then how are you going to spread kindness to the world?!? The last but most important of the steps is doing kind acts!!!!! Even picking someone's book off the ground for them is considered a good act, no matter how small an action.
When we do bad things, we usually feel horrible, or just get meaner and meaner.
So we need to help ourselves feel nice inside, and hopefully not have to experience feeling horrible any more. Some simple things we can do is to help a kid with homework, or you could care for your friend's pet while they are on vacation. Doing a positive thing for someone will always make you feel good.
Does someone get on your nerves? Well, the best thing you can do is to just kill them with kindness. You know, be nice to them to make them soft, that way they forget about annoying you (or worse). Anyway, to do that, you need some major kindness overload. It's like eating too much sugar! Some good actions you can do are to:
- give them something they really like for their birthday
- give them extra special compliments
- bring them some kind of dessert they like for lunch sometime
- remember their favorite color
- stand up for them if someone else is bothering them
- comfort them if they are feeling down
The main thing is that if you are kind to someone then they will be kind to you (most of the time . . . ). Before I end this piece, I would like to present a picture of doing a kind act, just to show you what it can do for you, and the other person.
