At Sedona Red Rock High School, Kate Hennessey’s English classes spent the semester studying a topic that is not found in the high school curriculum: Kindness.
The theme spanned through Hennessey’s classes for months, and incorporated reading “The Kindness Diaries,” writing three essays, accumulating 168 hours of community service, art projects and special field trips.
Hennessey combined her Capturing Kids Hearts’ character and community-building training with the Kindness project. Sedona Oak-Creek Unified School District teachers attended the program over the summer, and it taught them how to bring kindness into their classrooms.
“Students share good things each day, write affirmations for classmates and are encouraged to take leadership roles in the daily running of the classroom,” Hennessey said of the program, adding that the themes of the new district-wide focus on being compassionate students tied in well with the novel that she assigned.
“A few years ago, Leon Logothesis, author of ‘The Kindness Diaries’ book and television series, visited Red Rock High School to spread his message of kindness,” Hennessey said. “He donated a class set of his book that chronicled his journey around the world without a single dime. He relied solely on the kindness of strangers to find food, a place to stay each night, and gas for his yellow motorcycle, Kindness One. Each chapter documents his travels through a different country and the people he meets along the way.”
Like the book, Hennessey had her students embark on a kindness journey of their own, completing two-hour community service projects including caring for the elderly, running Veteran’s Day ceremonies and packaging Thanksgiving dinners for local families at a food bank.
Eric Schrader, a junior, rapelled off the 27-story City Scape in Phoenix alongside district assistant superintendent Deana DeWitt after raising $1,000 to support the Special Olympics Red Rockers team.
Carlos Lattanzi, a freshman, volunteered to clean the gallery of sculptor John Waddell a few weeks before his passing. Lattanzi said Waddell gave him life advice, such as “being weird is a good thing to be.”
Many students opted to volunteer with animals at adoption events, rescues and shelters. Tatianna Lovall even helped bathe and groom goats for a state competition. Of the students’ 168 combined community service hours, 52 of them were spent at the Humane Society, which the school has a partnership with.
Pre-AP English freshman Jillian Grondin, from the Village of Oak Creek, also opted to help animals for her project, but did so over three hours away in the Navajo Nation town of Kayenta. Grondin tagged along with her grandmother, who often helps rescue lost, abandoned or sick dogs on the reservation.
Grondin found herself at a home on the reservation, chasing eight puppies who were less than eight weeks old. But she soon realized that the terrier mixes weren’t exactly in a state to cuddle.
“[Their bellies] were really big and you could just tell by feeling them that they had worms,” Grondin said. “You could tell that [the owners] couldn’t really take care of the puppies.”
Along with that, Grondin said the puppies’ mother wasn’t breastfeeding them, and many other dogs on the property looked underfed.
The owners let Grondin and her grandmother take the puppies, who are currently in quarantine and will eventually be fostered. As well, the pair left three 50-pound bags of the best vegan dog food they could find for the family, which they were donated by VOC residents.
“It really opened my eyes because we went to some other houses and I could tell how many dogs don’t get fed,” Grondin said.
Grondin’s classmate, Annabelle Cook, went to the Yavapai-Apache reservation to help teach kindergartner’s at the Children’s Montessori House.
“I went to that school, so I felt like giving back to the community was something I wanted to do and I felt like the best way is helping the next generation,” Cook said. “It was a really great experience. The kids were really wonderful. And I felt like they were really appreciative. They were very welcoming and their overall energy and happiness inspired me so much.”
As part of the project, Hennesey’s students had to write an essay about their kindness role model. Cook chose her baby cousin as her role model.
“She’s only five but her ability of just kindness and her ability to share is just so large and so amazing,” Cook said.
While many students wrote about inspiring family members or friends, some students wrote about loved ones who are no longer around, including one freshman who wrote a poem about her brother who was killed.
Freshman Alexandro Molina chose his grandfather, Silvestre Molina, as his role model. Silvestre helped Alexandro “overcome two years of silence after his father was killed fighting for our country in Iraq,” Hennessey said. “Other students wrote about classmates who had passed away or fellow teens who were facing terminal cancer diagnosis with grace and kindness to others.”
Besides an essay on their service projects and kindness role models, students also had to write about who they thought the kindest person in “The Kindness Diaries” was.
Tony was a popular choice amongst the students. Freshman Hunter White, who worked with a church group collecting produce and selling it for charity, said he thought Tony was the kindest character in the novel because he had so little but gave so much.
“He was from Pittsburgh and he was homeless and he gave [Leon] a place to stay with him on the street, and he gave him some of the clothes he got from a homeless shelter,” White said. “In return [Leon] bought this guy a house and sent him to get his GED.”
“In each class, teams that earned the most points for collaboration, teamwork and positive engagement got to go on a horseback ride at the peak of autumn color,” Hennessey said. “For most of the students, it was their first time on a horse.”
Members of SedonaKind also came and talked to Hennessey’s students about projects they have done in the community to promote kindness, “including making kindness charms that have been distributed to over 54 countries, blessing bags for homeless community members, school programs and celebrations for World Kindness Day on November 13th.”
In December, the Kindness project culminated when Hennessey’s students made posters to present to the class which documented their service with five photos and their three essays. Through Artist in the Classroom, local artists Stephanie Phelps and Marti McNamee were able to come and show the students how to make a colorful paint splatter for their posters’ backgrounds.
Phelps, a self-taught mixed-media artist, said she was excited about Hennessey’s “cool idea” of putting kindness on display, and it psyched her up for the project. Phelps chose to teach splatter painting with the students because “it’s one of those things you can pick up really easily.”
The students also learned about composition in the process, with Phelps showing them how to emphasize certain photos and headings.
“We had so much fun,” Phelps said. “The students were very receptive and asked a ton of questions, and I think that is a really great sign of them having a lot of interest.”
Phelps is looking forward to seeing the students’ complete work on display in the SPAC lobby starting the first weekend in February.
“There will be approximately 100 projects on display, and students will be encouraged to invite their kindness role models to the exhibit. Many of their kindness role models do not know the kids wrote about them, so hopefully it will be a great surprise,” Hennessey said. “The kindness role models will be presented with a special gift donated to our class by SedonaKind when they came to speak to the students.”
