An annual Brandeis tradition, Kindness Day promotes compassion across campus. This year’s celebration was officially Thursday, Nov. 12, but volunteers tabled across campus all week.
Kira Levin ’17, a student coordinator for Kindness Day, agrees that everyone should be kind every day, but finds Kindness Day to be a reminder to tell people they are important to them.
“The thing is, sometimes we get so caught up in our own lives that we don’t have the time to … turn to our friends and be like, ‘You’re amazing, and I appreciate your friendship’” said Levin.
Kindness Day is a time to tell a professor or a friend, “‘You’re incredible,’ and write them a Kindness Day card,” she said.
A cooperative event, Kindness Day is dedicated to involving as many different student life departments as possible.
“My favorite part of Kindness Day is that every department works together, or as many departments as we can collect,” said Levin. “We have people from DCL, from Student Activities, from the graduate center … the ICC, the chaplaincy, it’s wonderful. We really get to engage every part of campus.”
Continuing its yearly tradition, Kindness Day included tables in Lower Usdan, Upper Usdan and the SCC Atrium, where students wrote postcards to friends and professors. Volunteers will take care of the stuffing mailboxes with the cards.
Other events scheduled for Kindness Day this year were a Wake and Shake table outside Usdan sponsored by Hillel and no-sew fleece blankets that students could help to create, which will be donated to Cradles to Crayons, which provides low-income and homeless children with essential items, sponsored by the Department for Community Service. Students also assembled coloring books in the SCC Atrium for the Boston Children’s Hospital, created bags of trail mix for the only day shelter for the homeless and the emotionally isolated in the greater western Boston area and participated in many other activities located in the Hiatt Career Center, the Usdan game room, Academic Services, the Psychological Counseling Center and in each of the residential quads.
New this year is an off-campus project on Friday, Nov. 13 at the More Than Words bookstore on Moody Street in Waltham.
Levin has been involved in Kindness Day for three years now, first beginning when she was recruited to become a coordinator during her first month of her first year here. She has made it her personal goal to get as many students, faculty members, organizations and departments involved as possible.
“The ICC will do the Tree of Kindness. That’s what they did last year. The Dean’s Suite will fund our shirts. Everyone’s involved in some way so they can tap into the kindness … It’s a good feeling,” Levin said. She also likes the globe-shaped stress balls they have this year that say “Happy Kindness Day, Brandeis University.” The Chaplaincy, the Psychological Counseling Center (PCC), Study Abroad, and the International Student Scholar Organization (ISSO) donated hundreds of dollars to purchase them.
This year, the student coordinators hoped to get a record-breaking level of students involved and encourage everyone to take the time to tell their friends or professors they appreciate them.