MARQUETTE, Mich, (WZMQ) – Each year for spread goodness day the students of Superior Hills Elementary School have a tradition of decorating door hangars with pictures and encouraging messages, and putting them in mailboxes in their neighborhood.
“We get to walk to houses and put them on people’s doors and it just makes people feel good,” said fifth grader Myra Lehtomaki.
Third grade teacher Abby Shunk said it’s a good way to get the goodness from in their classroom into their community.
“There’s goodness going on in our classroom day in and day out here at superior hills,” said Shunk, “and this day gives us a chance to spread that out into the community, and get the kids a part of a national movement and their feeling really empowered to make other people around our school feel important, and they’re just here to be part of the spread goodness day.”
Even though getting the kind messages out to the whole neighborhood can be quite a walk, the kids say they enjoy every minute of it.
“You get to see everybody and give them a compliment and celebrate it,” said third grader Mayer Josefowicz. “And I love decorating the door hangars.”
“You get to make sure people know that they’re enough and that they’re important,” said another third grader Lane Lepage.
The tradition is focused on the kids and the community, but the teachers say they have just as much fun as their students.
“They just get to see what kindness in action looks like,” said fifth grade teacher Kimberly Bancroft, “and that’s really cool as a teacher to get to see your students pass that on.”
For both the students and the teachers, the hope is that the goodness they bring will spread not just into their school, but to the whole community.
“Smiles are contagious happiness is contagious and we actually just read a book that said there’s nothing more contagious than a smile,” said Bancroft, “so hopefully the happiness that our neighbors get continues to get spread oud through the community.”
“It just spreads the goodness around the town and stuff,” said fifth grader Bodin Turner.
This is the second year of Superior Hill Elementary’s Spread Goodness Day tradition, and they plan to continue it again next year.
