By Maegan White
Elm Staff Writer
A night of doing homework in Hodson Hall turned into a service project for five students.
Sophomores Bailey Vogt, Justus Williams, Sean Nkem, Billy Bloom, and senior Ethan Rose sat on the couches in Hodson Hall and, according to the group, they began to plan an impromptu service project that they could get students involved in. They decided to organize a card writing event for children in regional hospitals on Wednesday, Sept. 14.
“We wanted to do something good, so we sat there all night brainstorming and formed the idea of Cards for Kids,” Vogt said. “It was something that we could so easily do while really impacting the lives of these kids.”
The five students were not part of a group or club on campus. They simply wanted to perform an act of service to brighten the days of children in the hospital.
Nkem shared that he was particularly motivated to do this project because of a video he saw of a little boy in a Texas hospital who received cards from strangers. The boy was overjoyed by the small act of kindness which sold the idea of making cards for patients in children’s hospitals.
The group gathered supplies, reserved a table in Hodson Hall, and spent their lunch break asking peers to make cards for kids in hospitals. Students could go up to the table, grab paper and markers, decorate their cards with messages of kindness and positivity, and return them to the tables where the group would coordinate distribution of the cards.
In the end, the group had over 120 cards completed by fellow students that will be distributed to kids at Nemours Children’s Health in Middletown, Delaware and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
The group is currently coordinating the drop off of the cards to the hospitals. While they do not have any plans for future projects, they are looking for more ways to support moments of kindness and bring joy into others’ lives.
Rose encourages his peers to challenge themselves to get out of their comfort zone and perform acts of service.
“Challenge yourself to do something good,” Rose said. “Spend time talking to someone and brighten their day. You do not even have to do anything big, you just have to be present in someone’s life and it will make all the change in their life.”
Williams said that it doesn’t “take much effort to do good” and that others can find ways to do the same.
“We knew we wanted to do something on campus to show people that they can spend one to two minutes and do something just to brighten someone’s day,” Williams said. “We wanted to show that you can do that any day.”
The organizers said that it is important they show their appreciation for all the participation from the student body.
“We wanted to extend our thanks to everyone who did write a card because that is how this works and means something,” Williams said.
They said that they hope more students feel compelled to add random and small acts of kindness in their daily lives and demonstrated that all that someone needs to brighten someone’s day is a willingness to be kind and a little bit of time.
Photo courtesy of Billy Bloom.
Photo Caption: Sophomores Sean Nkem, Bailey Vogt, Justus Williams, Billy Bloom, and senior Ethan Rose tabled in Hodson Hall during the lunch rush to catch as many students as possible.