SPOKANE, Wash. — Grant Elementary School recently created a "Kindness Club." Members commit random acts of kindness around school.
It already has 30 members ranging from fourth to sixth grade.
School Counselor Madeline Sells started the program as a way to provide more support for her kindergarten through second grade students. Club members can choose from a variety of jobs such as reading buddies, mentor younger students, art buddies or morning greeters.
"Students help me get the food out, then they do what's called our DI art buddies--our developmentally impaired classroom," Sell said. "They go in and do art with them on Fridays then they're doing one on one mentoring. Whether it's a walk, some kids do ukulele breaks."
Sells said 6th grader Echo Gring inspired her to form the club.
"She was just really wanting to help and going to teachers saying, 'I want to help'," Sells said. "But we didn't really have anything to kind of channel her in to giving back to the community and our school."
The Kindness Club meets every Friday to plan out their acts of kindness and sign up for jobs.
"I like helping kids, I also thought it would be fun to see what the smaller kids are up to," Gring said. "It shows that we're a big community and we like to help each other out."
Sells said the club has also helped build the students' self-esteem. They've said they feel needed and are an important part of Grant Elementary school.