Sacred Heart students give ‘pay it forward’ bracelets after
committing good deeds
HOLLISTER
If Sacred Heart Parish School’s experiment works, expect to start seeing many random acts of kindness, and don’t be surprised if teal, rubber bracelets become the latest trend in the community.
To encourage the students to do good deeds for one another, school Athletics Director Terri Canez came up with the idea of giving the students bracelets and having them pass them along after doing something nice for someone.
“I get so much pleasure out of doing things for the kids – I was trying to get the kids to do little things for each other,” Canez said.
On Thursday morning, Sacred Heart students were abuzz with energy, knowing in a few short hours they would be on holiday break and Christmas was just around the corner.
But after an assembly in which the students were told about the experiment, they became excited about something else: helping out others.
Kindergartner Claire Cagnacci, 5, was busy thinking about the kind deed she would do.
“If someone drops something, I’ll help them pick it up,” she said.
Canez came up with the idea to have the students ‘pay it forward’ – doing good deeds for others and encouraging them to do the same – after watching the 2000 movie of the same name starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt.
Each child was presented with a teal bracelet – similar to the popular yellow ‘Live Strong’ ones – and told to do something nice. After doing the good deed, the students were told to pass along the bracelet and to tell that person to do the same.
“This way, the kids could see how just this little act of doing something nice for someone can spread throughout the community,” Canez said.
She said when the students return from their break in January, she hopes to see none of them wearing their teal bracelets. Instead, she hopes to start seeing them spread throughout the county.
Seventh-grader Jeremy Cedeno, 12, said he hopes people throughout the community continue to ‘pay it forward.’
“I hope it works. It would be better because we’d have people clean up for the society and have a better world,” he said. “I think it’s a really good idea.”
Jeremy said he was uncertain as of yet what kind of good deed he was going to do and for whom, but he was certain after a while, the small acts of kindness would start to come naturally to him and others.
First-grader Allison Okamoto, 6, was also enthusiastic about the idea of giving out her bracelet.
“Once you give it to (someone), then they’ll be nice and do things for others,” she said.
Allison’s classmate, Sean Slavich, 7, reasoned that he already liked doing nice things for people, and this would be a good excuse.
Canez said, admittedly, she is unsure of how successful the “pay it forward” experiment will be. But she hopes that when the students come home from the break, they’ll have stories about helping others and seeing those people go on to perform their own random acts of kindness.
By the end of the day, Canez said a few of her eighth-graders already had been missing their bracelets. When she asked them what had happened to them, they informed her they already had done something nice for someone. One had helped a peer set up a chess game when the student didn’t know how.
Canez said she hopes to hear many more stories like this when she comes back from vacation. And maybe eventually, these little good deeds will just become intuitive.
“Hopefully, it well spread throughout the community,” she said.
