SACO — Students in Saco schools are celebrating kindness.

The schools in the district are observing Kindness Week Feb. 12 through Feb. 16, part of a national initiative called the Great Kindness Challenge, according to Young School Counselor Tina Nightingale. Through the Great Kindness Challenge, schools create a culture of kindness by challenging students to perform as many kind deeds as they can in a week and celebrating what it means to be kind.

At Young School, every day next week will have a theme that ties into kindness, said Nightingale. Monday will be different colored sock and shoe day, through which students will wear different colored socks or shoes to show kindness toward differences. Tuesday will be crazy hair day, encouraging students to be “crazy for kindness,” said Nightingale. Wednesday students are encouraged to wear a red or pink shirt to show love. Thursday is pajama day symbolizing being kind to your body by getting enough sleep. Friday students will celebrate their school community by wearing school attire or school colors. 

Every classroom will have a chart to tally up their acts of kindness and poems will be read every morning over the school’s intercom, said Nightingale.

Young School kicked off Kindness Week Thursday morning with a student-run presentation at the school-wide weekly meeting. 

Second graders Madix Paul and Addison DiCianni helped lead the presentation, teaching fellow students about ways to be kind. 

“We are teaching about kindness because if you are mean to your friends they might cry,” said Madix after the assembly. 

There are many ways to be kind, they said, including taking care of pets and conserving water.

“If someone falls down, help them up,” said Addison, who was wearing a red shirt for the occasion with the words, “Kind people are my kind of people.”

Also if a classmate doesn’t understand an assignment, you can explain it to them, said Madix. 

“We learned that if someone isn’t kind to you, you should still be kind to them,” said Madix.

Both agree that if more people were kind, the world would be a better place. 

— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 325 or egotthelf@journaltribune.com.