St. Joseph Catholic School third-grade teacher Cathy Walsh said her class started a project last school year that went over so well she kept it going this school year, and it’s still a hit.
Walsh said her third-grade class created the Kind Kart program in April, delivering snacks and other items once a month to employees throughout the Imperial school.
“I was doing a lesson on gratitude and kindness,” she said. “We were brainstorming ideas of ways to show it, and we thought it would be neat to show the teachers gratitude and kindness.”
Walsh said students’ parents donated snacks and other treats for the cart last year. The students then delivered the items to each staff member.
Because it was so well received, she said this year’s class is again filling the Kind Kart once every month and taking the items to staff members.
She said the class alternates what is delivered each month, offering the staff members food and drinks one month and then different kinds of items the following month.
“In September, we did bags that were filled with things like Advil, Shout wipes, Tic Tacs, hand sanitizer and ChapStick,” Walsh said. “In October, the staff members got chips, candy, soda, tea and water.”
She said students read a different poem each month while delivering the items from the cart.
Walsh said the school’s approximately 40 staff members do not know when the cart will make its rounds.
When students deliver snacks and beverages, staff members may take as much as they want from the cart. However, when bags of other kinds of goodies are handed out, everyone receives the same items, Walsh said.
“One of the kid’s cutest lines was, ‘You can have as much as you want. You just can’t have the cart,’” she said. “The staff members are so appreciative. They are smiling. They listen to the kids and give the kids hugs. A couple have said, ‘I have had a bad day until now. This is such a pick-me-up.’”
Walsh said the school’s two third-grade classrooms take turns pushing the cart around the school to deliver the snacks or other items.
She said the school has 32 third-grade families this year who donate after she sends out a spreadsheet listing the items needed for that month’s cart.
Walsh also said the class recently received a $150 grant from Midwest Regional Bank to help fund the cart.
“The third-grade parents are very generous in their giving of items,” she said. “I have been so overwhelmed with how the students want to give. A lot of times the little kids are scared to go to the big kids’ classrooms, and they are not nervous at all. They can’t wait to go to the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade rooms to spoil the teachers.
“You need kindness, and this teaches the kids how to be giving, show respect and let someone know you appreciate them.”