The years in which we begin to be recognized as adults, can be--in a single word--ridiculous.

 

Our friends, our family, our teachers, our media, and even people we don't know, compete for our attention and our agreement.  Everyone seems to insist on what's best for us--some through expressing careful and genuine concern for us, and others operating more nefariously.  The messages fly forth:  You're good enough, but you're not; you're important, but who do you think you are; you're in, or you're cast out; you matter, or you don't; you know things or you don't know enough; you're winning, you're losing, or you're not even playing in the right game.  Somewhere, amidst this, we try to find who we are with an urgency.  We make our best choices about where our attention should be placed, and with what we agree.

 

Is it any surprise that this time can leave us feeling rudderless, overwhelmed, and discouraged?

 

The Sycamore Kindness Initiative focuses on the students of Sycamore High School in Sycamore, Illinois, and seeks to serve as an active reminder of an immutable, foundational truth that is so easily obscured while we search for who we are:  We align with our true selves when we demonstrate kindness, and bestow dignity, to others.    However, past experience for some, dictates that this may feel like only wishful thinking--that it's some etherial ideal, a dream only true for someone else, or--at worst--an empty, unachievable platitude.

 

It's the Sycamore Kindness Initiative's belief that accounts of acts of kindness and dignity are always there, even when they may be difficult to see.  Our mission is to inspire students, faculty, and the community by recognizing the prevalence and profound importance of acts of kindness through the collecting, acknowledging, and sharing of the these stories that might otherwise seem remote, inaccessible, or inapplicable.

 

These stories are real, and they're accessible because they're happening around and through the students at Sycamore High School.  These stories are among them.

 

 They're there.  Come experience them by seeing What We Do.