Buddy Bench helps foster playground friendships
A newly installed Buddy Bench on the playground of St. Isidore School in Bloomingdale is designed to eliminate loneliness and foster friendship, inclusion and kindness.
A student without someone to play with can go sit on the bench. If other students see someone on the bench, they invite them to play.
The installation of a Buddy Bench was proposed by fifth-grade teacher Karen Yearly, who read about it in Teaching Tolerance magazine.
She brought the idea to Principal Cyndi Collins and school counselor Courtney Boulukos, and the Buddy Bench was installed and dedicated on the Bloomingdale school's playground.
To prepare the students, Boulukos brought a bench into her office at the end of September and put the words Buddy Bench on it. Then during her monthly classroom groups in November, she explained the concept to all the students.
To involve the whole school in this project, each grade - preschool through eighth - had its own letter and paint color where each student put their thumb print. Members of the eighth-grade Leadership Academy assisted in bringing it out to the playground for the dedication during Catholic Schools Week.
"We are thrilled to have a Buddy Bench on our playground at St. Isidore School. This bench is simply a place for students to gather with others and foster friendship," Collins said.
"It is meant to be a place where someone who needs a friend can find one. We want to share our mission of leading children closer to Jesus while teaching them to be inclusive and offer kindness to everyone they meet."
The idea of a Buddy Bench started with a student in Pennsylvania. In the spring of 2013, a boy named Christian was in first grade and there was a possibility his family was going to move to Germany.
When they were looking at a website for a school overseas, Christian saw a picture of a special bench on the playground. He asked about it and liked what he heard. He thought it would be a great thing to have on the playground at his current school, Roundtown Elementary.
Christian knew there were some kids who felt lonely at recess and he thought the bench would put an end to that. He told his teacher and his principal about it and they thought it was a great idea.
Since it was the end of the school year, the principal said he would look into it over the summer and they would get it in place in the fall.
In the end, Christian didn't move to Germany, so he was able to stay at Roundtown. Sure enough, his principal researched it and let Christian help pick out the bench.
After the Buddy Bench arrived, Christian gave a presentation to the school board to explain it. Before it was placed on the playground, Christian spoke in front of his whole school at a community morning meeting to explain the Buddy Bench and show a video about it that he made with his principal.
The local newspaper did a story on the Buddy Bench and it caught the attention of the Huffington Post. From there it was picked up by NBC and other media outlets. Christian has heard from students and adults across the country who love this idea and want to do the same thing at their schools.