Happy New Year! With the new year on its way, we are excited about the exciting things we have planned for our Kindness Ambassadors, as well as our monthly participants! At the start of each year, we like to present our kindness community with a yearly focus, kind of like a New Year’s resolution.

This year we have chosen to focus on the Sandy Hook Promise’s “Start With Hello” campaign. We challenge students to reach out to classmates who are in need of kindness, compassion, and friendship. An aspect of the Sandy Hook Promise is for students to recognize social withdrawal, victims of long-term bullying, and threats or thoughts of violence (even overtly) among their peers. Recognizing these signals and acting upon them can have multiple positive reactions.

The Sandy Hook Promise has identified social isolation as the key problem their “Start With Hello” campaign aims to eradicate, “‘Start With Hello’ (SWH) is designed to bring individuals and communities together to foster looking out for and caring for one another.” All the program asks of children and teens is to make sure no one sits alone at lunch. We’d like to expand upon that and encourage students to play with someone who looks left out at recess, invite someone to hang out who rarely has weekend plans, and make friends with new peers outside of their current friend group.

When simple actions are taken to include, support, and show kindness to those who need it most there are lasting positive effects not only on the individual but communities as well. The Infinite Smile Project encourages you to follow the “Start With Hello” three simple steps:

See someone alone

Reach out and help

Start with hello!

Make this year about spreading smiles and join us on this mission to say hello to everyone!

Take a look at what we have planned for 2019!