Fairfield Intermediate School (FIS) student, Ava Gallegos (at left), is one of many of her classmates named as Kindness Ambassadors at their school.

As part of the Kindness for Case Challenge, honoring Case Robinson who passed away in September of 2018, students are encouraged to complete kindness challenges each day. If a student is observed being kind in any way, teachers and staff invite the student to add a link to the kindness chain that is working its way around the school.

So far, the chain is more than half way around the school!

“I presented the idea of this program to the school the week of Case’s accident,” says FIS Physical Education Coach, Lizzie Daniel. “I created it hoping to give our students something positive to focus on during such tragedy. It has done that and so much more. Kindness has become our theme for the entire school year and is incorporated into everything we do. We are exploring ways to continue this theme into next school year already.”

Being chosen as a Kindness Ambassadors is a high honor at the school, and typically only one or two students are awarded this title every other Friday during morning meeting when the entire school gathers for announcements and a pep rally.

Ava was chosen as an ambassador during the month of December.

Her act of kindness was assisting a special needs student on the playground. She observed this student struggling on the monkey bars and beginning to panic. Ava stopped playing and sprinted across the playground to help this student from falling and hurting herself.

But Ava didn’t stop there; she took her kindness to the open seas and on to Mexico during a family cruise vacation.

According to her grandmother, Ava sported her Kindness for Case T-shirt during the cruise.

She also decorated the outside of the door to their cabin with posters about the importance of kindness to others.

Ava even posted a note about kindness on a different cabin door each day throughout the week to spread the word to her shipmates, people she didn’t know.

“I’m so proud of her and blessed to have her as my granddaughter,” says Becky Long, Ava’s maternal grandmother.

Teague Elementary School caught wind of the program and asked Coach Daniel to present it to their students. They are now participating in the challenge with Fairfield.

For more information on this program, you may contact Lizzie Daniel at FIS through the school’s front office or website emailing system.

Congratulations to these students! The world can use more kindness, especially in these current times.