Frenship High School Student Council Sponsor Courtney Ferguson attended a Student Council conference a few years ago. At the conference she connected with a company called Character Strong.”
“The company pushed ‘deep kindness,’ which is different than just being nice,” Ferguson said. “I bought the book and I bought into the whole thing. The book explained that a saying like ‘Throwing Kindness Around like Confetti’ is a very nice thing to do but we have to understand that kindness is not always that easy like throwing confetti.”
Ferguson said she began to change up her strategy a bit when it came to incorporating kindness into her Student Council projects and initiatives. She said she had previously used the saying, “Dude. Be kind,” but knew that it needed to go deeper than that.
“We all know what it looks like to be kind and what it feels like to be kind, but I knew we needed to go a little further than that,” Ferguson said. “Student Council is all about inclusivity. I don’t look at grades, unless we are traveling, I don’t look at hours, I don’t kick students out of Student Council. It is all about showing up and participating.”
Last June, one of Ferguson’s former students reached out to her about a campaign another school was doing called “If You Knew My Story…”
“She said to me, ‘I wish my teachers would have known,’ because she struggled with her identity,” Ferguson said. “So, I started researching that concept, and I realized that it isn’t that, as humans, we don’t want to be kind, it’s that we don’t know what that other person is dealing with.”
Ferguson sent out the idea to teachers, and after getting a lot of positive feedback, she decided to move forward with the campaign.
“This is the beginning of the program,” Ferguson said. “We sold black t-shirts that said ‘#IfYouKnewMyStory,’ and during our first Kindness Week this year we had a specific day that students wore their shirts. We called it ‘Wear Black, We Have Your Back’ day.”
Ferguson and her Student Council students have also started a Kindness Newsletter with the link for students to participate in the “If You Knew My Story…” campaign. Ferguson said that so far thirteen students and teachers have told their stories.
“The newsletter goes out once per month, and with it there is a ‘testimonial link,’” Ferguson said. “It says ‘What do you wish your teachers knew about you?’ They are allowed to either anonymously submit their stories, or there is a spot for them to include their email. All of that information comes to me, and if someone reaches out and provides their email, I would then be able to provide our counselors with their information.”
Ferguson said that she is hoping that through this campaign, students are relieved of any burdens they are carrying, able to open up and share their stories, and can move on from their problems.
Ferguson said that she hopes as the newsletter grows, so will the campaign.
“I want there to be more testimonials involved in this because I want our teachers and students to understand that these are things that are happening in the lives of our people right here at Frenship,” Ferguson said. “To put a more positive spin on it, I am hoping that it helps others see that everyone is dealing with something, and that they are not alone.”
To sign up for the Frenship High School Student Council Kindness Newsletter click HERE.