What began as a quarantine activity has grown into a city wide project.

Saint Joseph Health partnered with Fayette County Public Schools to promote the art of Human Kindness Initiative, a fun way for students to exhibit what kindness means to them.

The Art of Human Kindness Initiative really began as an internal challenge to encourage and inspire our care givers during the pandemic.

That was a very stressful time in our health history, and we wanted to find a way that would give our caregivers a lift.

And we found that in doing so, it it was so impactful that we wanted to take that human kindness to the community.

And so in 2022, we went out into the community, into one of our partner schools, and we allowed them to show us what it means for for human kindness by using chalk to create images on their sidewalks of what it means to be a friend, what it means to be kind, what it means to be respectful to their peers within their school community.

That one school produced about over 200 students who participated.

We've since grown into four schools where over 500 students participated in.

And so the impact of this initiative is not only for us as as us as a hospital, but also for the students within Fayette County Public Schools.

The goal of this project for the district to support it is to encourage the teacher, to encourage the student to choose kindness above all else, and think about other people and develop empathy for their peer, for their school community, for their bus driver, for their cafeteria worker, for their teacher, for anyone that they see and hope that it carries out outside of the school.

The first year the students chose chalk and so we provided chalk to the entire school, which they then use to build images of kindness and friendship and and love and joy and peace on their canvases.

In the second year.

We used not only chalk, but also photography.

So cameras were used and they were able to build a collage that displayed those images of kindness.

Our mission is to make the healing presence of God known in our world and improve the health of those that we serve.

And so we're excited to not only improve the physical health of our communities, but also inspire human kindness and influence the behaviors of our communities.

And so we hope that this initiative will continue to grow beyond the elementary schools into our middle schools and into our high schools so that they can take it into their circles of influence.

And so now you have this society of kindness that is now perpetuated through this, through this art of human kindness initiative.

Good idea.

The initiative continues to grow as more Lexington schools are joining in to spread kindness.