The first Kindness Day of 2017!

Hi friends, it's Elena. Can you believe it’s already the first Kindness Day of 2017?! January 13th is tomorrow! Don’t forget to email me at CKGElena@kidgovernor.org about what you have done this month to be kind. This month, I made cards for the lunch ladies, security guards, and the custodians at my school with the help of my friend Zora. Thanks Zora!! 

So here are the ten suggestions!

1. Make you lunch ladies cards 
2. Write someone a secret letter everyday!
3. Hold a door open for someone
4. Give a friendly smile everyday 
5. Make a New Year's resolution focused on kindness
6. Tell someone they're doing great if they're struggling!
7. Create a list of kind things you will do in January 
8. Help someone who is struggling with their work 
9. Tutor someone or free 
10. Help your parents around the house 

In December, I officially met my successor, 2017 Connecticut's Kid Governor Jessica Brocksom! We had a transition meeting at the Old State House where she and I had the chance to talk about my year and her upcoming term, our families talked about the Kid Governor experience, and our teachers met and talked. It was a fun meeting and I gave Jessica a tour of the Old State House!

Jessica and I with George Washington in the Senate!

Jessica and I fighting for the CKG sash! (joking, of course!) 

Jessica and I also made our first appearance together at the Electoral College meeting at the Capitol on December 19! We toured the Capitol, and then led the Pledge of Allegiance in the Senate Chamber. We then watched as Connecticut's electors cast their official votes for President and Vice President of the United States!

Jessica and me with Secretary of the State Merrill and Connecticut's electors

Jessica and me in the Senate just after the Electoral College meeting!

One more thing I want to say congrats to the 7 final candidates in this past year's Statewide Election for Connecticut's Kid Governor! You all had winning campaign platforms and I hope you will carry them out whether or not you won! 

Talk to you next month!

- Elena

Today is December Kindness Day!

Hi everybody!! Can you believe it's already December? This year has flown by!!

So this month I have a challenge for you!! Write down all of the kind acts that you do for the month of December! If you email me at CKGElena@kidgovernor.org you will get a shout-out in next months blog post!! Can we get ten shout-outs next month??!!!

Ok, on to the ten December Kindness Day suggestions!!

1. Go to Toys R US and donate a toy to Toys for Tots!! 
2. Adopt a family for the holidays!! 
3. Bring your bus driver baked goods! (they always love them) 
4. Take a minute and write a note telling someone why you're thankful for them!! 
5. Make all your classmates holiday cards!! 
6. Tell people how much you appreciate them!! 
7. Donate hats, gloves, personal hygiene products, toys etc. to your local homeless shelter!! 
8. Help raise awareness for the next CKG Jessica Brocksom's campaign!! (learn more HERE)
9. Ask your teacher if they need any help!! 
10. Do a surprise cleanup for your parents!! 

I want to give a shout out to all of the kids who made a marvelous attempt at being the 2017 Connecticut's Kid Governor by running in the Statewide Election! You can watch their videos HERE. 

Congratulations to the next Connecticut's Kid Governor, Jessica Brocksom! I got to meet Jessica at Connecticut's Old State House last week. You can learn about Jessica at CT.KidGovernor.org!

Jessica and me at the Old State House! 

Also, shout-outs to Abby Salmini, Mrs. Kiely,and Mr. Bosso!! Thanks for your emails this past month!

Talk to you guys next year😉!!

- Elena 

Who will be the next CKG? Find out LIVE on November 23!

"Convivencia": the art of living together!

A message from your friends at the Connecticut Public Affairs Network...

Hello to all of our Kindness is Kool readers out there!  Elena, along with all of YOU, have been working very hard during the past year to come up with some great ways to show kindness to your friends, classmates, family, and even people you’ve never met!  Congratulations on demonstrating convivencia!  (Say what?!)

If you’ve never heard the word convivencia before, it is: “the art of living together”.  And you’ve been practicing the art of living together every time you act with kindness.

Most of the time we think of “art” as the drawings we create for fun in our free-time, or the paintings and sculptures we see in a museum.  But if you look up the word “art” in the dictionary, this is what it says: “something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings”.

Isn’t that what “kindness” is, after all?  If you’ve been helping Elena come up with ways to be kind, if you’ve recently treated someone kindly, you’ve used your imagination and skill to create something beautiful (good feelings).  And you’ve expressed important ideas (respect, selflessness, compassion) through your kind actions.  Maybe you’ve seen someone who looks sad -- and you thought about ways to cheer them up.  Maybe you’ve seen someone having a bad day -- and you thought of a way to help them out.  Maybe your kind action was the only good thing that happened to that person that day!  And it showed them that someone noticed them and cared about them enough to make them feel important.

We can use our imaginations to create something beautiful and express important ideas every day.  And the great thing about convivencia is that when you show others how it works, they learn that skill from you.  You become a model for “the art of living together” and your acts of kindness get paid forward over and over again as more people start doing what they see you do!

Students in the Colombian Andes learning convivencia at school! (Steve Drummond/NPR)

Convivencia helps make it easier for us to get things done when we work in groups, whether it’s working on a class project, cleaning up after ourselves at home or playing a team sport.  Doing our fair share of a class project shows that we care about the others in our group by pulling our own weight and not leaving all the work for everyone else to do.  At home, it makes it a lot easier on the rest of our household if we clean up the kitchen once we’ve had our after-school snack or hang up our towel in the bathroom instead of leaving it on the floor for someone else to pick up.  And team sports are called “team” sports because each player’s job is to help his or her teammates win the game, and often that means kindly sharing the ball to allow fellow players a chance to score!

"The art of living together” is such an important idea in learning that it is now used in some schools as a way to educate students throughout their school day.  This way of learning, convivencia, started in Escuela Nueva in Columbia, South America.  You can learn all about it in the NPR podcast HERE and below.  But if you have been thinking of ways to be kind and are practicing kindness each and every day, you are already becoming skilled in the “art of living together” and are ready to show others how convivencia works!    

November Kindness Day and my last post as Connecticut's first Kid Governor!

Hi friends! This is my last blog post in my term as Connecticut's first Kid Governor, which ends in a few weeks when the next CKG is elected!! I am excited to say though that I will be continuing this blog and Kindness Day after the end of my term! Enter your email address at the top right of this page where it says "Follow Elena and her Campaign for Kindness" to make sure you receive updates from this blog!

First, since November Kindness Day is just around the corner, I have ten kindness suggestions for November 13:

1. Celebrate the top seven candidates for this year's Connecticut's Kid Governor election
2. If your friend is struggling with their work, give them a helping hand 
3. See if any of your teachers need help with their classroom 
4. Make ten cards with your friends and give them to one specific teacher!! 
5. If a friend forgot something help them get it done 
6. Give your parents a book of coupons like "one free chore" or "one nap" 
7. Go through your toys and give the ones you don't use to a child who needs them 
8. Bring a fun treat to your teachers 
9. Give your family a big hug and say "thank you for all you do"
10. Celebrate your friends and your kindness!!

I have gotten to do so many amazing things this year as Connecticut's Kid Governor!! I had an amazing time and was able to meet so many diverse people. I got to go to opening session at the State Capital!! I went to several events in my town, East Hartford!! I went to several libraries through my Summer Library Circuit and got to meet so many amazing kids all across Connecticut!! I also went to the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony just last week where I got to speak and meet a whole bunch of amazing people!!

Me with Governor Malloy at the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame Induction last week!

This year as CKG I learned that it's important to be involved in government!! I learned that learning what is going on in your community is very important because children are the future and if we have no idea what's going on we will be in big trouble!!!

Most importantly, I hit all three of my campaign goals!! 

• First, I got people all across the state of Connecticut to celebrate the 13th of the month as Kindness Day and hear all the remarkable acts of kindness they did!! 
• Second, schools and organizations across Connecticut installed Buddy Benches on their playgrounds! We are now up to 15 Buddy Benches installed thanks to the East Hartford Rotary Club (they bought 11 Buddy Benches!!), Pleasant Valley Elementary School in South Windsor, Reynolds School in Newington, and most recently the McKinley Elementary School PTA in Fairfield! (photos below) Thanks to State Representative Cristin McCarthy Vahey who told McKinley Elementary School about my goal of installing Buddy Benches!
• And third, by creating an email address I got to hear what the amazing kids (and adults!) across Connecticut wanted to do to be kind!! I also met many kids when I went and spoke to them!

Photos of the new Buddy Bench at McKinley Elementary School, painted by 5th graders!

Well that is it for my last post as CKG. Be sure to subscribe to this blog and continue to follow my campaign for kindness here and at CT.KidGovernor.org! Thanks for a great year and remember to be kind and always celebrate it!!

- Elena 

The Statewide Election for the 2016-2017 Connecticut's Kid Governor™ Begins Next Week!

A message from your friends at the Connecticut Public Affairs Network...

We are pleased to announce the following candidates for the 2016 Connecticut's Kid Governor™ Statewide Election! The candidates and their selected platforms are:

Avery: Homelessness

Chelsey: Kindness

Georgia: Bus Safety

Jessica: Animal Cruelty 

Madelyn: Senior Pet Adoption

Nathan: Bullying Prevention

Nicolas: Recycling

Each candidate has completed a campaign video outlining why he/she wants to be Connecticut's Kid Governor, what leadership qualities he/she has, what community issue is important to him/her and why, and a three-point plan outlining ways for Connecticut 5th graders to make a difference around that issue.

The candidates' videos are now available HERE.

All 5th grade classes must pre-register in order to vote in the Connecticut's Kid Governor Statewide Election. Registration will close on Friday, November 4, 2016. For more information, please email Brian.Cofrancesco@kidgovernor.org. 

Upcoming Kindness Days and Kindness Activities!

A message from your friends at the Connecticut Public Affairs Network...

We’re always on the lookout for more cool kindness ideas! Here are a few of the awesome projects that kids and communities are participating in right now, as well as a few kindness-related dates coming up soon. Take a look at some of the great ways to get involved!

In January 2017, a group associated with Kids for Peace is coordinating The Great Kindness Challenge-School Edition, where schools can sign up online and pledge to be kind for one whole week. Schools can download a challenge list to follow, or come up with their own kindness activities.

Finding ways to be kind is made even easier if you follow the suggestions at any of these websites, some of them for individuals, and some designed to be done in a group like a classroom setting.

RandomActsOfKindness.org teaches you how to be a RAKtavist (Random Act of Kindness doer) with activities like hiding fun-filled Easter eggs in a park for someone to find, or leaving a thank you post-it on a cafeteria tray for the person who has to wash them. There are also lesson plans here for teachers to use (free!), and even research showing how kindness actually makes our brains and bodies better. (Fun Fact: a Swedish study in 2013 found that human heart beats synchronize with each other when we sing together! Kindness activity? Start singing with your friends!)

KindSpring divides its kindness activities into categories like animals, the elderly, and teens, and lets you click a tab to say “I’ve done this.” They also have printable “smile cards” – allowing you to do an anonymous kind act and encourage the next person to pass on the kindness!

 

Download your smile cards here!  They're available in 16 languages. 

Former educator and human services professional Barb Shelly created a website called KidActivities, which features pages of kindness activities and craft ideas specifically for school-age kids and classrooms, including making a kindness paper chain, a wall of love craft, and how to hold a crayon drive for sick kids!

Kindness is important every day, but there are some special dates when people all over the world do something nice for some other person:

• World Kindness Day is coming up on November 13
• Random Act of Kindness Day is February 17
• International Kindness day is July 27

And international Pay It Forward Day is April 28, 2017. This one is special. The goal is to inspire 10 million acts of kindness around the world, and they are being tracked on the website. A bunch of schools, communities, and states from the US have signed up – maybe your school could be next!

Every single kind thing we do for another person helps to make the world a better place. So go find your next kind act through one of these websites, start your own kindness campaign in your school or community, or just smile at the next stranger you see. No act of kindness is too small!