By Karla Perez
This week, the Start with Hello event was hosted by SHAPE at MLEC. Every day, there would be a different activity that allowed and encouraged students from all grades and academies to socialize and enjoy the event with one another.
The Sandy Hook Promise started this program as a way to bring awareness to one of their campaign’s main focuses: raising awareness about social isolation and educating students and the community on how to prevent it. They claim that this event is to teach students “the skills they need to create a culture of inclusion and connectedness and encourage them to reach out to and include those who may be dealing with chronic social isolation.”
Start with Hello week started on Monday, September 24 with “Hey Day.” For that day’s event, students and teachers were asked to wear name tags given to them during their first block, and greet one another with a warm and friendly “hello.” Students also enjoyed a game of Human Bingo in which they tested their knowledge regarding their homeroom peers.
On this day, the decorations with the word hello in several languages were also scattered around school and students got the chance to take pictures with these, as well as with the massive “hi” made up of all the different hellos, which was outside of Building 3.
Tuesday, September 25 was “Positivity Tuesday.” Teachers took some time from homeroom to pass around sticky notes throughout their classrooms so that the students could fill these with positive quotes or messages and put them on their classrooms’ doors as a way to decorate and bring awareness to this week’s overall theme.
Wednesday, September 26 was “Make Miami Green.” For this day, students and staff were asked to wear something green to symbolize the color’s importance throughout this event; green is the color of promise, (Sandy Hook’s commitment to making schools safer for everyone) as well as the event’s signature color.
Thursday, September 27 was “Hello! Let’s Mingle.” This day went down as the most fun out the entire week for many students. Green balloons in the shapes of stars, hearts, and circles, as well as photo booths and people handing out conversation starters, filled both F and C Cafeteria.
At first, students were shy to approach new people and make friends with complete strangers, but as lunch progressed, the cafeterias seemed more lively than they had ever been before.
Laughter and flash from the cameras at the photo booth brought a friendly and comfortable atmosphere that attracted more and more people to make a line to take a picture with someone they didn’t know, but that could potentially become their friend.
The last day of the Start with Hello week was “Forget Me Not Friday.” Students took the opportunity to sign an immense banner during lunch as a way to “pledge to choose kindness.” This day marked the end of the event that started on Monday thanks to MLEC’s SHAPE club.
“Everybody responded so positively. The kids were loving it. I would see happiness as I would walk around the school… The club kids that we have in SHAPE are the most involved that I’ve seen in years… This week exceeded my expectations,” said Ms. Brooks (SHAPE’s sponsor) in regards to the Start with Hello event. “I was really happy with the amount of involvement with the students in the school–it’s almost as if, because now on television and the news there’s a lot of negativity… it’s a breath of fresh air when people are nice to one another. I think it lifts everybody’s spirits a little bit.”
Overall, the event was a success; everyone got to enjoy all of the activities throughout the week with their old and newly made friends.
