Kim Finnerty was cooking Thanksgiving dinner and listening to the news when a story about Links of Kindness, an anti-bullying campaign started by Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, caught her attention.
“The name just kind of stuck with me,” said Finnerty, a science teacher at Edward Little High School in Auburn.
She came back from the Thanksgiving vacation with one Christmas wish: to have a chain of kind thoughts written on construction paper looping the first floor of the high school by the start of the Christmas break.
Friday, she achieved her goal.
“Some of them are about staff,” Finnerty said. “Some of them are about students. Some of them are personal things. Some of them are just general statements like, ‘If you were an item on the McDonald’s menu, you’d be a McGorgeous.’ You know, just really fun, cute things that are just heart-warming. They make you smile.”
Finnerty doesn’t know the exact number of links it took, but most students and staff participated in the project.
“It took a lot of, ‘Get this done,'” Finnerty said. “The teachers, the staff and the kids just took it and ran with it. It was so awesome.”
She didn’t know where she would take the project, but the students have enjoyed hearing the random thoughts read during the daily announcements.
A few have suggested they start looping the chain upstairs, as well.
“I feel like the school is really coming together,” said junior Madison Roy, 16. “It’s created something really special and a lot of positive energy.”
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- Edward Little High School science teacher Kim Finnerty, left, and students Jordan Lansley and Travis Burnham string one of the final segments of Finnerty’s Links of Kindness around the first floor of the school Friday.
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- “Today we read one that said, ‘If your name begins with the letter A-Z, you are amazing.’ It’s just really heart-warming to read them,” said Kim Finnerty on Friday. The kind thoughts were written on brightly colored construction paper by students and staff at Edward Little High School.
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- Jordan Lansley prepares to connect the Links of Kindness chain that loops around the entire first floor of Edward Little High School on Friday.
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- Students and staff let out excited shouts as they see the final pile of chains for science teacher Kim Finnerty’s Links of Kindness that wrap around the first floor of Edward Little High School. Daily, a few links are taken down and read over the intercom with the announcements. “They really enjoy hearing a kind thought,” Finnerty said.
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