Photo by Patience Jurgens[/caption]
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he week of Feb. 17, the Never Exclude Stay Together (NEST) club promoted Kindness Week through daily tasks and tweets.
“Kindness Week started from NEST because we wanted to create a better community and create a positive environment for everyone here, even more so than now, and to continue it on a daily basis,” senior Renee Pineda said.
Because of teacher training there was no school on Monday, so Kindness Week started on Tuesday with #sweettweettuesday, a hashtag that students used to shoutout to a friend or teacher and say something nice about them.
Following that was #writeitoutwednesday when students wrote nice notes to whomever they felt necessary. #Thoughtfulthursday continued the trend by encouraging students to share something thoughtful with someone.
Friday was #FearnotFriday. At lunch students were to sit with someone that they hadn’t sat with before to get to know someone new.
Bellevue West has seen different occasions when students were encouraged to sit at a different lunch table to get to know someone new. Junior Joey Lydiatt hoped that the idea would be successful because NEST had a whole week’s worth of participation leading up to Friday’s event.
NEST club was mainly made up of students from Inclucity but as time progressed more students decided to join.
“It’s just students getting together with a common goal and knowing that school sucks sometimes but we can make it a better place,” junior Joey Lydiatt said.
NEST started last year and has grown ever since. They have done projects to help not only the West community but others as well; one project included sending supplies to a reservation in South Dakota for the winter.
The club also does random acts of kindness for the students and teachers of Bellevue West. They’ve sent out letters to teachers encouraging them, and giving small treats out to students when they see them doing good for others.
“It’s basically a big group of people who are trying to change West for the better,” junior Bryn Estlund said.
Patience Jurgens
Reporter
