Respect, Kindness Rocks, Northbrook Students Find

NORTHBROOK, IL — Both on hard surfaces and for students having a hard time, students and families at Meadowbrook Elementary School are spreading kindness ahead Thanksgiving break this year.

Last week, parent and volunteer Liz Wang found herself testing her car's load-bearing capacity as she transported two crates of rocks to school for a project to have all students paint messages of kindness on rocks, which will be on display at the Northbrook Public Library.

The Friday event was inspired by a national initiative, The Kindness Rocks Project, to spread inspiration and motivation in the world. Students also signed an all-school Respect Each Difference pledge to celebrate all the ways students may be different.

It was the second in a series of monthly activities as part of a yearlong campaign, Project RED – "Respect Each Difference".

“In the past we have focused on differences related to people with disabilities. This year, our focus is on accepting all differences,” said Principal Pat Thome. “My hope is that our students will learn the importance of celebrating differences and appreciate the value that everyone provides within a community.”

For the past two years, Wang ran the annual one-day PTO event called the RED Fair, where students experienced different exhibits to understand different student physical and neurological disabilities. This year she expanded the fair into the yearlong project by creating lessons and events each month that also celebrate kindness and all types of diversity.

"The timing of this couldn't have been better because we're doing multiple fundraisers this week," Thome said. "So it just fits together perfectly."

The Meadowbrook community had also mobilized to offer support to the needy near and far, as families donated school supplies and food item, wrote more than 200 letters to enlisted service personnel and adopt a classroom impacted by hurricanes this fall. The school delivered boxes of food to the Northfield Food Pantry and the students' letters will be sent abroad with care packages.

Fourth grade teacher Kathryn Mazzarella helped connect a class with the Adopt-A-Classroom project. She contacted a former Meadowbrook family who now lives in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which was hit twice by powerful hurricanes this year.

The fourth grade at Meadowbrook recently organized a school-wide supply drive and raised money to ship the supplies with a “Wear a Hat Day.” And Mazzarella said students hope to build pen pal relationships with their newly adopted peers.

The Adopt-A-Classroom USVI project is a three-month commitment to support classrooms of 15-35 students on at schools on the islands of St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix by sending four large, flat rate USPS boxes to the classroom each month.

» via Northbrook School District 28

Check out a video of Meadowbrook students decorating stones as part of Project RED Kindness Rocks:

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_{Top photo: Colt Nyren, left, and Charlie Stuart, right, work on their ‘Kindness Rocks’ which will be displayed at the Northbrook Public Library as part of Meadowbrook School’s Project RED. | Courtesy District 28}