Kindness spreads at Westgate Elementary School

In 2013, the PTA at Arlington Height's Westgate Elementary School introduced students to SPPRAK (Special People Performing Random Acts of Kindness).

Westgate music teacher Jerry Berger wrote a SPPRAK Rap to teach the students what SPPRAK was all about, and it quickly became a huge hit with students and staff alike. Students were then encouraged to be thoughtful and thankful to their peers by writing a thank you on a Post-it and sticking it to a wall in the commons area of the school.

Every morning during the daily announcements, random "SPPRAKs of the Day" are read aloud by the Westgate students.

To reinforce the culture of SPPRAK kindness, in the fall of 2014, the Westgate PTA brought in Amy Logan, author of "A Girl with a Cape." Logan talked to Westgate students about her book's message that everyone can be a superhero of kindness in both small and large ways.

To coincide with her visit, the Westgate PTA hosted a three-day superhero "Kindness-a-thon," which ended with students wearing their superhero capes to school.

In February 2015, Westgate hosted its fifth annual Project Linus event as a way to "create" kindness. More than 116 Westgate students came out on a cold Saturday to make more than 170 no-sew fleece blankets for children in need. Project Linus is an international organization that provides blankets to children who are in the hospital or otherwise in need.

A week later, Westgate students celebrated and honored National Random Acts of Kindness Day by writing letters, drawing pictures and creating homemade valentine cards that were delivered to nursing care facilities in Arlington Heights. More than 130 of these special valentines were delivered to Hearthstone Home at Lutheran Village and Church Creek.

Individual classrooms at Westgate have also participated in special acts of kindness. Amy Kuehl's and Christie Carey's fifth-grade class wanted to raise money for the African Library Project, an organization that will ship 1,000 books that were collected to Sibetsaphi Primary School in Africa.

So they created a "Stick it to Coach K" fundraiser, which involved all Westgate students purchasing tape to stick their PE teacher to the lunchroom wall. Using 568 yards of duct tape, coach Eric Kirschner actually stuck to the wall for less than a minute while the students cheered him on. They raised more than $508 to successfully ship the donated books.

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