Decorated doors open up to kindness

A push for kindness has prompted people to pause before they enter classrooms at Beacon Middle School.

In celebration of National Kindness Week Feb. 9 to 15, students at Beacon Middle decorated classroom doors with a kindness theme.

Decorating doors was an extension of kindness pledges students took in October, said Annemarie Walsh, paraeducator at Beacon.

“We're trying to continue the emphasis on kindness throughout the school year,” she said.

Doors opening to the hallways of Beacon took on a variety of colors and designs when students were finished with them.

A team of teachers, administrators and school board members judged the three winning doors.

With a larger-than-life-sized phone charger, which would surely be the envy of any household where working chargers are in short demand, Justin Voorheis's Intensive Learning Class turned its door into a smartphone plugged into a shoebox-sized outlet.

“The kids came up with the idea of a phone, especially because of online bullying,” said Zach Coffman, paraeducator for the class.

The phone has a free app on it that shows ways to be kind: Smile, give compliments, use manners, help others, be respectful, nice and considerate, share and open doors.

“The kids helped make everything,” Coffman said.

Coming in second was Jennifer Celano's seventh-grade class. The brightly decorated door featured cut-out photos of students accompanied by kind comments for each of them.

In third place, Emily Lehne's class went for an international theme.

Butterflies decorated with flag colors of countries around the world surrounded a heart-shaped earth representing kindness around the world, said Logan Donovan, 12.

“We want to show that kindness is growing,” he said.

A basket of notecards written with kind thoughts hangs on the doorknob, free for the taking.

“We ran out of them the first day we made them,” said Nicholas Roros, 11.

Walsh said she was impressed with designs students created, especially since their only direction was to create something related to kindness.

“It gave them artistic freedom,” she said.