WILTON — No small act of kindness is wasted at Academy Hill School.

This year, the entire school participated in the Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support program. Every class chose their own project and reached out to the community while improving the school climate.

“We really started doing this after the Sandy Hook tragedy happened,” said Suzanne Loring, PBIS coach and math interventionist at Academy Hill. “That really is part of PBIS is schoolwide stuff.”

The students worked 2-3 months on their projects. They included messages of kindness for their families, sending letters to snowplow truck drivers thanking them for putting in long hours to keep the roads safe this winter, providing dog treats for the Franklin County Animal Shelter, raising money for the Western Maine Play Museum through a Hoopathon, and the Heifer Project.

For the Heifer Project, money was raised to help purchase a farm animal in another country for people to use for eggs, cheese, “or whatever they want to do with it,” said Loring. The first female offspring from the livestock is then passed down to another family in that nation.

The 5th grade made a treasure hunt for the second-graders, which the younger students greatly enjoyed, according to Loring.

On a Friday in late March, the students enjoyed a snack and drinks in the cafeteria as a reward for their efforts. The schoolwide goal is to get to 1,000 acts of kindness by the end of the school year, and if it’s reached, there will be a celebration of some kind.

“I think they learned that even little acts of kindness make a difference in other people’s lives,” said Loring when asked what she thought students learned from the project.