From Nov. 12 to 16, schools across the Virginia Peninsula participated in United Way of the Virginia Peninsula’s School Kindness Week. Aligned with American Education Week, School Kindness Week brought the joy of kindness to the classroom and provided students a week to see how their individual acts of kindness affect themselves, their friends, classmates, their school and the entire community.
Students participated in multiple activities throughout the week to show kindness, including writing kindness essays on what kindness means to them, collecting coins for the kindness coin drive and participating in kindness theme days to show there is not just one way to be kind. Schools handed out kindness stickers to students who were caught being kind to their classmates and friends. Over 30,000 students participated within 50 schools across Gloucester, Williamsburg/James City County, York County, Poquoson, Newport News and Hampton.
School Kindness Week is only one portion of the larger mission of the United Way of the Virginia Peninsula to spread kindness to the whole community. The Kindness United campaign is in place to inspire positive change to unite all people of the community behind one goal of kindness.