Stand Up and Be Kind
By: Emily Loseke, aka “Secret Agent Highstepper”
The Leigh Secret Kindness Agency is a group of amazing sixth grade students who advocate for kindness in hopes of emphasizing its importance and making a positive impact within and beyond our school and community.
The agency officially commenced on October 14th this year after agents signed and recited a Secret Kindness Agent Oath and created secret agent names. From then on out, the agents draw kindness missions every other week and complete them anonymously and faithfully.
In addition, the Secret Kindness Agency challenges Leigh classes with kindness competitions. Once a month the agency selects five missions, writes a secret letter, and chooses a younger and older class to challenge. It’s then up to the challenged classes to complete their missions with the most participation by the due date, and the class with the highest percentage of participation wins.
In the week of October 26-30, the agency challenged the senior and third grade classes. Between the three classes, they completed over 184 kindness missions. The senior class had the highest participation with 92%, the third grade with 89%, and the sixth grade with 75%. The missions included writing a thank you note to a teacher, doing two extra chores at home, telling a friend why they’re amazing, complimenting five different people, and leaving a kind note in a book.
The Secret Kindness Agency challenges surrounding sixth grade classes with kindness competitions as well. In the week of November 9-13, the agency challenged Clarkson, and the results will be posted afterwards.
As of now, the Leigh Secret Kindness Agency has completed and shared roughly 222 kind acts, and while these acts of kindness may seem small, they start to add up, affecting both the giver and receiver of kindness.
This year the agency’s working through the FCCLA Stand Up national program that encourages members to assess current needs, educate others regarding concerns, and advocate, so others can make a difference now and in the future.
To assess current needs, the agency conducted a recent survey on kindness, and 59 Leigh junior high and high school students responded. These were the results.
53% believe kindness is very important, and 93% rate kindness at 7 or above on the importance scale.
68% try to be kind and value kindness, and 25% are kind once in a while but it depends on the day.
56% feel their class is kind, 25% feel their class is very kind, and 17% feel their class is fairly kind.
The Leigh Secret Kindness Agency hopes to improve Leigh students’ views on kindness, so they’re encouraging others to stand up and be kind.