'Paducah Kids for Kindness' Launched on Facebook

Morgan Guess, a 10-year-old at Lone Oak Elementary School, has joined forces with her mom, Susan Guess, to continue to spread the message that positive is stronger than negative. The mother-daughter team has created a “Paducah Kids for Kindness” Facebook page.

The page thanks Paducahans for their support of the Not in Our Town campaign in 2012 and encourages students to support this new effort to give kids a place to TELL the world that kindness cures.  The page allows kids a chance to post positive comments about fellow students and, if too shy to do so themselves, to submit a comment anonymously. The page will post the compliment both on the new Facebook page and directly to the intended person’s personal  page.

“Other schools across the country have successfully initiated these pages, particularly at the college level,” says Guess.  “The ‘all you need is love’ Facebook message is successfully helping to change a culture of unkindness and apathy to one where young people are actively participating in creating a more positive atmosphere in their schools and in their lives.”

Morgan Guess likes the idea of this project being about “friends helping friends and making new ones along the way.” She has already shared ideas that the two are going to put into action on the page. They will set up a council of advisors from each school to monitor the page to make sure all comments are sincere and true forms of kindness sharing.  The group will meet monthly to share what is working well and what needs to be adjusted to make the page stronger and better.  They will also host contests and give prizes to the schools with the most ‘likes’ and positive comments posted.  And they want to encourage students to perform random acts of kindness and to share their own ideas of how Paducah/McCracken County can set the example and lead the way in terms of actions that lessen bullying incidents.

“I loved how one "compliment" Facebook page likened their page to ‘the human equivalent of a ray of sunshine,’” Susan commented.

“Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia Universities may have paved the way, but Morgan and I believe that Paducah can set the example for younger students,” she added.

Thirteen million kids will be bullied this year, 160,000 kids miss school every day because they are afraid, 1 in 7 students in grades K-12 is either a bully or a victim of bullying, and 1 out of 5 kids who bully another child will spend time in jail by the time they reach the age of 25.

"We can change these statistics," said Susan, "and by doing so, we can improve the overall quality of life of all Kentuckians. All it takes is for one person to stand up to make a difference, but when we all stand together is when we can change the face of bullying."

The page will be launched Sunday to coincide with the National No Name Calling Week.

The Guesses believe that, “We can do better than this and we also believe that the students are the ones who must lead the change.”  The mom and daughter encourage everyone to check out Paducah Kids for Kindness on Facebook and to start spreading happiness by visiting https://www.facebook.com/pages/Paducah-Kids-for-Kindness/313500005418587.