Vermont Students Spread Kindness With Coffee Sleeve Art

Fourth graders at Brookside Primary School in Vermont spent their week before February break creating art for strangers, and the results are now brightening coffee runs and library visits across their community.

The school celebrated Random Acts of Kindness Week with daily activities that extended far beyond classroom walls. Students decorated coffee sleeves with sweet messages and drawings, then hand-delivered them to Black Cap Coffee & Bakery where customers now find them on the pickup counter.

School counselor Kately Mosher set up a table in the lobby where students could create the coffee sleeves throughout Monday. "What do you think someone would want to see when they sip their coffee or hot cocoa?" she asked the young artists.

The kindness campaign didn't stop with coffee. On Tuesday, students painted watercolor hearts that were assembled into a mural spelling "BPS" with a heart, then delivered it to the Waterbury Public Library.

Co-principal Sarah Schoolcraft explains the school wanted to "broaden kindness around Valentine's Day by doing a little bit more than exchanging Valentines." The timing also solved another challenge: transforming the sluggish week before vacation into something energizing.

Each day featured a different theme, from Creative Hair Day to Inside Out and Backwards Day. Students wrote thank-you notes to community members, posed for photos spelling "KIND," and reflected on their own acts of kindness by creating a paper chain.

Three fourth graders took on a special project, interviewing younger students about kindness and what they love about Brookside. Mollie Deane, Sawyer LaRocca, and Beck Lea filmed their classmates and edited the footage into a video to share at an all-school meeting.

The Ripple Effect

Mosher reached out to fourth-grade teachers specifically to find leadership opportunities for older students. "We want to empower them to be the role models they are," she said, noting that fourth graders sometimes experience fatigue after spending so many years in the same building.

The structure matters, Schoolcraft emphasizes. "It's called Random Acts of Kindness Week, but it feels very highly structured. The structure needs to be in place to get people thinking, 'Oh, how might I be kind?' It lays the groundwork for future spontaneous acts of kindness."

This marks the first year partnering with Black Cap Coffee after the business responded enthusiastically to Schoolcraft's outreach. Last year, students created art for the newly opened Waterbury Family Shelter, but leaders wanted more direct student involvement in deliveries.

The celebration gives practical meaning to kindness, the school's unofficial fourth core tenet alongside being safe, respectful, and responsible.