Wareham Elementary to launch schoolwide kindness program

Wareham Elementary School will become a Feinstein Leadership School after the School Committee  approved the initiative during its Thursday, May 21 meeting.

Principal Daniel Sylvestre presented the proposal, describing the program as an opportunity to promote kindness, community service and student leadership throughout the school. The program is run by the Feinstein Foundation, founded by Rhode Island philanthropist Alan Shawn Feinstein in the 1990s.

According to Sylvestre, the foundation’s mission is “to inspire people to help others through acts of kindness and make the world a better place.”

More than 240 schools participate in the initiative, which provides schools with opportunities for grants, raffles and community service projects.

As a Feinstein Leadership School, Wareham Elementary students will receive “golden tickets” entered into weekly raffles. Sylvestre said five tickets are drawn every Monday, giving schools the chance to win up to $2,000 for projects that support kindness and community engagement.

“There’s also a $500 fund where the child who has that ticket gets to select a local nonprofit organization,” Sylvestre said. “Sometimes they give it back to the school, sometimes they’ll give it to an animal shelter or food pantry.”

Students and staff will also receive Feinstein T-shirts, and the school will gain access to additional grants for projects such as kindness displays, food pantries and community initiatives.

Sylvestre shared examples from his previous experience at Park Elementary School in Rhode Island, another Feinstein Leadership School. He said the foundation awarded grants for projects including a “kindness tree” display and a school food pantry.

“They don’t really have a lot of heavy oversight to it,” he said. “They’re very open to feedback. Anytime we do a project or somebody puts a grant in, they basically ask for a picture, and that’s what they need.”

The program is free and will run at no cost to the district.

“There’s no monetary cost to the district,” he said. “I literally reached out and asked, ‘How does this work?’ and they accepted us into the program.”

The initiative also aligns with the district’s Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, or PBIS, which are efforts focused on kindness and positive school culture.