Funston School’s Blessing Box provides for those in need
Published 4:00 pm Tuesday, October 8, 2024
- The Blessing Box at Funston Elementary School is a small food pantry that’s stocked with nonperishable food and household goods like toothpaste and diapers. The message on the outside of the box is “Be blessed and take what you need. Be a blessing and leave what you can.”
FUNSTON – Funston Elementary School’s Kindness Club recently put up a “Blessing Box.”
The “Blessing Box” is a small pantry stocked with non-perishable food and household goods. It’s located on the school’s campus and is for anyone who is in need or for anyone to contribute to the pantry’s stock. The message on the outside of the box is “Be blessed and take what you need. Be a blessing and leave what you can.”
Anna Johnson, technology teacher and sponsor of The Kindness Club, said, “Last year, we started The Kindness Club based on the premise of The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation with our goal to make kindness the norm.”
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, established in the 1990s, is a non-profit organization with a mission to make kindness routine behavior. It provides free, digital resources to schools, workplaces and communities.
According to the organization’s website, “It was during a summer of violence when a reporter noted that people should stop reporting on ‘random acts of violence’ and start ‘practicing random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.’ That started a movement.”
“We perform random acts of kindness throughout our community by serving others,” said Johnson.
Some of the projects that the Funston Elementary club has done are provided lunch for its School Resource Officers, sang Christmas carols and made Christmas cards for local nursing home residents, made 75 care packages for local linesmen who were working to restore power after Hurricane Helene, collected money and food/cleaning supplies for the local Humane Society, made “Kindness Grams” for the school’s students, sent the staff letters of appreciation written by the students, gave custodian appreciation gifts; and gave lunchroom staff appreciation gifts.
“We have several community service projects lined up for this school year,” Johnson said.