Seventy-eight Year 5 students from Central Coast Adventist School (NSW) brought smiles to dozens of people last Thursday as they celebrated World Kindness Day with simple but heartfelt acts of generosity.
The students visited Erina Fair shopping centre, giving flowers and handwritten encouragement cards to shopkeepers. They also handed out chocolates to shoppers, delivery workers and security staff—brightening the day of everyone they met.
School chaplain Jessica Corker said the idea began earlier in the year as she explored meaningful ways for primary students to serve their community.
“I saw World Kindness Day and thought it could be a good opportunity for the Year 5 students,” she said. “The idea was to shine some of Jesus’ love to the community while also giving the students an opportunity to look beyond themselves.”
The impact was immediate. “A shopkeeper told me she was having a bad week, but then the young girls came in and gave her the flowers—it just made her day,” Mrs Corker shared. “They were very impressed with the kids.”
One shopper felt compelled to write to the school afterwards, saying, “I would like to thank both the teachers and students for their kind gesture handing out chocolates as a celebration of World Kindness Day at Erina Fair.”
For the students, the experience was just as meaningful. “Some students were a lot more nervous than others in terms of initiating conversations with people, but others really thrived,” Mrs Corker said. “Some of the boys were saying, ‘This is so much fun.’
“At the start of it, some were like, ‘Do we get a chocolate?’ But by the end of it, no-one was asking for a reward—just bringing smiles to people’s faces seemed to be reward enough.”
With such a positive response from both the community and the students, the school is looking at making it an annual event.
