Hundreds of students at Mesa View Elementary gathered in the gymnasium Monday morning to spread joy and friendship to their fellow students.

“This is a two week kindness campaign. It gets kids thinking about what they’re greatful for by writing them everyday on a sticky note and posting that on a wall. We’re hoping to have 5,000 things that the school is grateful for by the end of the two weeks, which is pretty amazing thing to think about”, says Jami Lewis who’s the Student Council Leader at Mesa View Elementary.

It’s called the Look for the Good Project and it’s designed to promote students to look for the good in everyone.

“We’re hoping to promote kindness and showing kids that, no matter what, you’re important to all of us”, says Lewis.

And, It can be as simple as giving someone a “You Matter” card, where students hand these cards out to other they’ve never met before, to develop a potential friendship with them.

“If you go out and take one of the cards and say, ‘you matter because you just helped out that little kid’, or something. Or, you could possibly make some more friends and get to know each other more, because if they say, ‘I’m grateful for my dog’, then you’ve just found out they have a dog. I think this is a great way to make more friends”, says Akelia Calkins, a fifth grade student at the school.

“They have the sticky notes so you can put on the wall who you’re grateful for and it could be anybody, like if they picked up a piece of trash or opened the door for you, you’d put their name on the wall”, says Porter Braseoe who’s also a fifth grade student.

Students also took time to read their “You Matter” letters out-loud to their fellow student, to share what they’re grateful for.

The students have two weeks to reach their goal of 5,000 “You Matter” cards to post in the school, and based on the positivity experienced among students today, we don’t expect it’ll take long to reach that goal.

Go to www.lookforthegoodproject.org to learn more about how students are working towards building a happier student population at the school.