San Benito High School’s kindness movement started with little acts such as clothespins clipped to backpacks broadcasting positive messages such as “You Rock,” “You’re awesome,” “Smile” and “Have a great day.” The idea was to pay a kind thought forward, so anyone who received a clothespin message would give it to another student.
Then, inspired by a guest speaker, the students of San Benito High School created a measurable act of kindness: collecting 1,025 pairs of shoes for the needy.
After the nonprofit Think Kindness’ guest speaker Gary Xavier came to the school in early May to talk about paying it forward, he left students with a challenge to collect “as many gently used shoes as they could in a two-week period,” said Catalina Lemos, the assembled student body activities director.
“The message mainly was that given the choice, people will choose kindness,” Lemos said. “He was kind of saying ‘do you think we were made to hate or be kind?’”
When collections stopped Tuesday, the students had collected 1,025 pairs of shoes.
“I’m really proud of them,” Lemos said.
Xavier’s visit was organized by ASB; the Key Club, a high school student service program; and the Make a Different Monday team, a student group that promotes random acts of kindness every Monday on campus.
Thanks to the guest speaker’s motivational talk, students and staff emerged from their closets with all kinds of footwear including baby shoes, tennis shoes, flip flops and high heels.
The original challenge was for students to raise 1,000 shoes in just 24 hours with freshmen and sophomores bringing footwear to the Youth Rally-Hollister and juniors and seniors bringing shoes to their prom.
The students found more than 200 pairs of shoes overnight. While they didn’t meet their goal of collecting 1,000 pairs of shoes immediately, the idea of paying it forward took off.
Even the staff participated in the challenge. The cafeteria, human resources and principal offices all took boxes – each of which hold 25 pairs of shoes – and got to work filling them with footwear.
Think Kindness collected the shoes Tuesday and will distribute them to homeless shelters in the U.S. and to people living in third-world countries.
“Honestly, I was just impressed with the way the students came together,” Lemos said.
