The first Kindness Week jumps out to success around the school

York’s first ever Kindness Week jumped to a success among everyone involved. Started as a mission to honor disability month, Kindness Week grew from just a small idea two months ago transformed into a whole week to honor and respect all students. 

“York spotlighted Black History month, and Women’s history month, and we just wanted to make sure, especially with the end of the year looming around, that we are feeling better about ourselves and why we are all here every day, and so Kindness Week was born,” Megan Ausnehmer said. 

Through the two month schedule since the planning process began, Kindness Week has blown up in ways that came as a surprise to even the staff involved with it.

“This was extremely surprising, a welcome surprise,” Ausnehmer said. “It had been awesome to see students open up on the announcements and all the fundraising that happened.”

This week featured many things to get students involved including a raffle, shirts and bracelets being sold in the cafeteria, and an end of the week pep rally. 

“So much was born from just a really small idea,” Nathan Thokkudubiyyapu, senior, said. “The student leadership team really took the idea and rolled with it. With the help of Best Buddies we were able to grow Kindness week into what it turned out to be.”

Based on the name, people can make the assumption about the main purpose, but there was much more behind the scenes that many students had no idea about. 

“Student leadership team was started after the incident last semester because York was divided, and we wanted to make our school a better place,” Thokkudubiyyapu said. 

The end of the week pep rally is also focused on bringing everyone together for a better future. 

“The pep rally was just another thing to bring a community aspect to York, and it is a really great way to end our week,” Ausnehmer said. 

Kindness Week was truly started with community at the forefront, and blew up into what we saw this week. Anyone involved knows the importance that it had, and everyone is already looking forward to it next year. 

“It really was a great way to bring joy into a really bland part of the year,” Kevin Kelley, Best Buddies president, said. “The people at York are actually good people, and highlighting that was really important.