In honor of National Random Acts of Kindness Week, February 12th-18th, we are highlighting an activity recently completed by our 2016-2017 Lone Star Leadership Academy Alumni Council members. Members have committed to a year of continued leadership development in the form of four leadership lessons and a service project. In December, for one of their lessons, Carolyne Markle, Alumni Council Coordinator, challenged all 88 members to reflect on how Random Acts of Kindness received had made them feel and the benefits of performing them. She then challenged them to perform their own Random Acts of Kindness. The 88 members representing schools and districts across Texas completed the assignment and spread goodwill all over the state! Here are just a few examples:

• "My friend and I chose to smile at everyone we pass in the halls at school. It definitely creates positive vibes and encourages the people we smile at to smile at others, too!"
• "We decided to write anonymous notes to our favorite teachers about how much we appreciate them."
• "I noticed a girl behind me was a girl that very few are actually nice to. I let her go in front of me in the lunch line and we had a very good conversation. She lit up and I could tell it made her day. It brightened my day probably just as much as hers."
• "I placed a treat in the mailbox for the mailman. I feel mailmen work hard and rarely get recognized for what they do. I'm not sure what his reaction was, but I felt good about doing something without being recognized for it. It felt good that someone else would feel appreciated."
• "I wrote a thank you note to my piano teacher thanking her for always supporting me and encouraging me to do my best. Teachers probably don't get thanked often enough by their students and I knew she would really like it. She was so thankful she almost cried! It was so easy to do and it meant so much to her. I felt really glad I did it."

We hope our leaders have inspired you to perform your own Random Act of Kindness this week and in the future! It just takes a minute of your time. Check out our Alumni Council's Random Acts of Kindness Photo Gallery. Let's all pay it forward and add an extra dose of kindness to each day! Want to learn more? Visit https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/. #RAKWeek2017