Nicole Scrivner, co-president of the Parent-Teacher Organization at Stingley Elementary and mom to third-grader Charlie, said her family has gotten creative with acts of kindness. Her son put out birdseed before the big winter snowstorm at the beginning of February, made cards and performed a private concert for friends and family, among other acts, Scrivner said.
Scrivner said she feels this has helped Charlie with time-management skills, creativity and healthy competition for him and his classmates.
“I like that kind of clarification that we’re not paying kids to do good deeds,” she said. “What we’re doing is just helping support the school, but to show gratitude for that, he’s passing it forward and doing acts of kindness.”
Community members can donate to individual funds or to the PTO and can ask individual students attending Stingley Elementary to do an act of kindness. Kids can “win” the fundraiser by either raising the most money or doing the most acts of kindness.
The idea came from Raise Craze, Scrivner said, a fundraising platform that promotes acts of kindness as part of school fundraising. Individual students have set up their own fundraisers to donate to with Raise Craze.
The school’s principal fund is used to purchase instructional materials for learning projects or specialized instructional needs throughout the school year, Stingley Elementary Principal Katie Thornton said.
Scrivner said the meadow was a PTO-led initiative with the Washington-Centerville Parks District that would create a meadow for kids and teachers to use behind the school.
It could also be used as a place for kids to go to regulate their emotions, Scrivner said, and teachers could incorporate the meadow into a lesson.
“The reason for that is to create this kind of third learning space classroom for kids, where they can observe natural wildlife, they can observe natural plant growth,” she said.
The fundraiser is online at https://my.raisecraze.com/give/ag738uj/.
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