When starting a new school, especially one as young as Gallatin High is, tradition is something we are new at and can keep building. Tradition connects the student body and honestly, we lack that severely here at Gallatin. However, there is hope for our community as our school is starting an unofficial official club - Kindness Club. Interviewing Dawn Drahos, a science teacher here at Gallatin and the founder of this club, she brings insight on how the club came to be and the future of it.

During early morning bus duty, Drahos was making the best of it. “I was making a little game out of trying to say ‘hi’ to people and was noticing that the number of return ‘hello’s’ was quite low.” The minimal eye contact and disconnection Drahos felt prompted her to think about how distant we are from one another, “just in society but also within our school.” Thinking this over, Drahos thought of a plan similar to one she enacted in the past few years: randomly handing out smiles. Whether that was hanging out smile stickers, smiling fruit snacks, or just giving a real smile to people down the hall; the connection this brought lifted strangers’ spirits. So to further this experiment, Drahos says, “Think about how many people we could reach if students started doing that as well, and they could benefit from it themselves as the giver."

Thus the Unofficial Official Kindness Club was born. The first course of action was to talk to students in her class, Drahos planted the idea for students to join in on her idea and start spreading kindness. Stickers were put out in her classrooms for students to grab and distribute to people they didn’t know, hoping to lift some more spirits in the process. “One of my classes had asked ‘You know, I wonder if there is a kindness day, a day for everything’ so we looked it up and there is actually a World Kindness Day.” 

On Monday, November 13th, Drahos and some volunteer students decorated the commons with smile balloons and posters while some students handed out smile fruit snacks to people walking through the school. It turned out to be a great success with one student in the commons, Mia Aguilar, stating “everyone is being so nice, this is so cool.” All in all, this day is one to remember and hopefully will be a Gallain tradition for years to come.

From one random day during bus duty to the day students took action and brought kindness to Gallatin, the connection of our school has a bright future. If you still want to partake in this club and find other ways to join in, stop by Ms. Drahos in room B133 to find out the next course of action for the Unofficial Official Kindness Club.