Westside’s B.I.O.N.I.C. (Believe It Or Not I Care) Club has made it their goal to show kindness throughout Westside High School. The club created a calendar for last month where each day marked a different activity anybody could participate in to show kindness. The calendar started at the beginning of December, and continued until Westside’s winter break. Sophomore and club member Kirsten Geiger said that participating in the activities on the calendar is a great way to spread kindness, even if you can’t be in every activity.

“You just do three weeks of kindness,” Geiger said. “You don’t have to do every day, but just do whatever you can to show kindness. If you do it every single day that’s great, even just doing little stuff would be great. It’s just about showing how much you care.” 

Geiger said that she thinks spreading kindness was important during the holiday season.

“That’s what [the holidays] are all about, happiness and [they are] cheery, so we just want to show everyone that we care, especially now,” Geiger said. “So many people are in terrible moods, it’s just something that helps out.” 

Geiger gave examples of some activities on the B.I.O.N.I.C. Club calendar.

“Some of the things include sending an email to Nurse Matthews, make something for your neighbors, thank a friend on social media, give a compliment over email or in person to a teacher or family member, pick up a piece of trash off the ground, share a personal story with someone you love, easy stuff like that,” Geiger said. 

Geiger and the rest of the B.I.O.N.I.C. Club worked to spread awareness about the event.

“We have an Instagram and a Twitter and then we need to make posters,” Geiger said. “I’ve been telling everyone that I know about it.”

Guidance Counselor Lauri Cunningham runs the B.I.O.N.I.C. Club. Cunningham said that the club created the calendar in hopes of spreading kindness.

“We decided that it would be neat to have a daily kindness happening, so we developed a calendar together and came up with some ideas, created that calendar and then shared that on Twitter and Instagram,” Cunningham said. “It just started at the end of November, and everyone just had some great ideas and we put it together in a calendar and went from there.”

Cunningham said the main point of the calendar was to show how much you care for the people around you.

“The whole calendar, every day, it asks you to do things for others. Pretty much everything is focused on trying to show that you care for others,” Cunningham said. “One of the cool ones that they really liked was to make two plates of treats, drop one off to a friend, and give the other to someone that your friend suggests.”

Cunningham said that the calendar has also benefited the Westside community.

“I think it’s made a difference in people’s lives,” Cunningham said. “When I sent it out to the staff here at Westside, I had teachers and other people saying ‘Hey this is great, I’m doing this every day, this makes a difference,’ so it’s kind of cool to see how that works.”