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Kindness Of The Heart Is Alive And Well In Hillsborough Schools
The School District of Hillsborough County is collab- orating with For The Family, Inc. in the agency’s “Kindness of the Heart” initiative. It in- cludes National Days of Kind- ness that are observed on the first day of every season as part of an ongoing celebration of the positive.
Students participating in the District’s Summer HOST Program have been busy with a variety of kind-hearted proj- ects to coincide with the offi- cial start of summer. In fact, students at Cannella Elemen- tary School literally used hearts to show how much kindness is all around us.
That project was conceived by Art Specialist, Linda Cox to accomplish that goal while it also connected with the week’s curriculum focus on Italy. Her students come from several neighborhood elemen- tary schools, including Can- nella and Woodbridge, and are in Pre-K through 5th grade.
They were given hearts in
every color of the rainbow and wrote a kindness-related mes- sage from 25 options that she prepared. “Love one another,” “Be a friend,” “Show respect,” and “Be nice” were just some of the examples. Each heart was connected with pushpins into a chain circling a globe with the words, “That’s Amore” (the Italian word for love) inside.
Ms. Cox thought her stu- dents certainly rose to the oc- casion: “I chose different colored hearts to reflect diver- sity, and each child tried their best to make them unique. They were enthusiastic and couldn’t wait to get started.”
The globe and circling hearts were mounted under- neath the message “Love and Kindness Go Together” on a bulletin board that was dis- played in the cafeteria through June 28. It then becomes part of a show for parents that fea- tures other art along with dance and music perform- ances.
HOST Program involve- ment was the brainchild of Debbie Zenk, who is District Supervisor for After-School Programs. Cindy Wilkin- son is Coordinator of Learn- ing Experiences for HOST, and thought the heart project combined simplicity with a positive impact.
Meanwhile, For The Fam- ily is both gratified and im- pressed with how Hillsborough County Schools organized National Day of Kindness activities in a short period of time.
The agency is also encour- aging individuals and organi-
Kindness Of Heart art on display at Cannela School.
zations to email 1-minute video nominations to ForThe- FamilyTampa@gmail.com that describe the kindness of parents, sisters, brothers, spouses, sons, daughters, and others. It’s all part of “Kind- ness of the Heart,” which will continue to gain momentum every year.
Each video is eligible to re-
ceive a Family Flame Award at the 3rd Annual National FAM Awards (basically the Acad- emy Awards of Kindness) on November 16th at the Chil- dren’s Board of Hillsborough County. All videos must be re- ceived by November 1st. Learn more by visiting www.StrongerCommunity.co m.
FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 2018 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 7-A