Kindness matters: How we are spreading kindness

When we were kicking off the new year for Girl Scouts, I wanted to find a way to get the girls to open up to each other and figure out a way to offer kind thoughts to one another. One of our Greater Ink shirts is Kindness is Contagious, and I knew spreading kindness with kindness rocks would be a fun project.

What you need to do

I painted the rocks different colors and put the name of each girl on the rocks. At the start of every one of our Girl Scout meetings, the girls reach in our “rock bag” and pull out the name of another girl. We spend a few minutes telling each other three things that we like about that person or just share a story about why they are special to us.

At first, the girls were obviously nervous to openly talk about one another in front of each other. Now they look forward to the start of each meeting with the rock bag. Everyone wants to be the first to draw a rock from the bag and immediately start thinking about what they are going to say.

I’ve asked them how it makes them feel to hear compliments from their peers and all of them have said it makes them feel good. I have also seen the girls try to come up with new words and phrases to describe one another and not use the same description more than once.

When I talk about why I love being a leader, it’s these moments that make me proud. It really makes my heart happy to see such a small gesture make such a huge impact on the girls. Our goal is to take our rock bag and imagine all of the names of our friends in it. The girls have started practicing how they are going to make kindness matter in their lives… after all Kindness is Contagious!

Want to create your own rock bag? Here’s what you need…

• Rocks, you can actually buy river rocks (which work best) at Michael’s
• Acrylic or chalkboard paints
• Oil markers
• Clear acrylic gloss spray
• A bag that you can’t see through

Paint your rocks different colors, let them dry completely. Write the names of each girl on a rock. You could also let them do their own rocks as a project. Once they are completely dry, spray with clear acrylic gloss so the paint and marker doesn’t come off. Once dry, put in your bag and bring it out at your next meeting.