Lockhart Elementary School celebrated Unity Day on Oct. 21, a national initiative that promotes kindness, acceptance and inclusion. Social worker Amanda Pusateri spearheaded several projects that filled the school with visual reminders of these values.

All students signed their name to a “We Stand Together for Kindness” banner that was then hung in the lobby. Dangling from the ceiling were paper hearts, on which students wrote words based on the prompt, “How do I want others to make me feel at school?” They completed their hearts at home in partnership with their families, and the project connected to the district’s social-emotional learning initiative, RULER.

Every Lockhart student also contributed to a “Kindness Makes Us Shine” bulletin board. On strips of orange and yellow paper, they wrote different ways of showing kindness, which were then placed on the bulletin board to look like rays of the sun.