English teacher Marianne Midkiff assigned a random act of kindness to both her freshman and sophomore classes. This is the first of many acts of kindness this year for her classes, as she will have her students do two acts each six weeks in the hope that they learn how to be more selfless.

“We see so much bullying and things that aren’t positive,” Midkiff said. “I wanted to teach the kids some positive things and teach them how easy it is to be kind and show the that it isn’t a chore to be nice.”

Students could either choose a random act of kindness that their teacher had or come up with their own. The point of this project is to bring awareness to how selfish people actually are and this is what Midkiff wants her students to realize.

“All of us have been a little self centered and I want us as humans to get away from that,” Midkiff said. “I think the world needs more kindness and it has to start somewhere so I thought that we could start here.”

Since this may be new for some students to do something kind for someone else instead of for themselves, it is a work in progress. As the year goes on, students are expected to become more comfortable with the project.

“As we get better at doing this, I hope that we will be able to do something big as a class,” Midkiff said. “I want more of acting as a team on these things instead of being all separate.”

The vision for this project is to bring the students out of their comfort zone. Midkiff’s hopes are for the students to realize how much the staff in school does for them.

“I made brownies for the ladies at the front office,” freshman Marrissa Huerta said. “This has shown me how to say thank you but in a more appreciative way.”

In doing this project, students have learned that doing a warmhearted act is easy and can sometimes pays off. One student really came out of her comfort zone to make someone’s day.

“I’m a very shy person and I have never done anything like this before,” Huerta said.  “The front office gave me a thank you card with all of their names on it and even though they didn’t have to do that, it made my day.”