Stanly Academy gains funds through acts of kindness

Published 9:00 am Wednesday, July 3, 2024

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The Values-in-Action Foundation, a non-profit organization that for 30 years has worked to make kindness a core value in America through its Kindland initiatives, has announced the winning schools in its national Kindness Games competition.
The Kindness Games immediately followed the organization’s Kickoff for Kindness video presentation that was viewed by 79,000 students in 27 states. With the support from the National Football League Foundation, the video featured several star players from the National Football League and selected student peers providing inspirational messages about acts of kindness they performed.
Kickoff for Kindness “kicked off” the Kindness Games by encouraging schools to compete to log the most acts of kindness students performed and/or witnessed on the free Just Be Kind App. (Just Be Kind App.com).
Educators in schools that competed downloaded the Just Be Kind App and registered under their school name to enter the competition.
“The Kindness Games were extremely important because they provided students and staff with a fun opportunity to engage in, share, and spread kindness through a familiar medium.The positive impacts created by the Kindness Games were far reaching given the feedback,” said Stuart Muszynski, founder and CEO of the Values-in-Action Foundation.
There were two categories in the Kindness Games with first, second and third cash prizes noted below for each of the K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 grade levels.
The first category is the Student Participation Category which was calculated using the number of student participants compared with a school’s total enrollment.
The second category is the percentage of Acts of Kindness which compared the number of acts of kindness posted with a school’s total enrollment.
Stanly Academy finished in third place in the student participation category and received $1,000. It placed first in the next category and won $5,000.
“We participated in the Kindness Games. Students and staff submitted acts of kindness performed or witnessed on the Just Be Kind App,” Principal Karen Nixon said. “This was a culminating activity for our Character Counts Week which focused on the four pillars, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring and Citizenship. We focused on one to two pillars a month for the year.”