All people can make a difference in the world simply by building others up through kindness. According to Huffingtonpost.com, kindness can change the shape of our world and the future.

That’s exactly what Chloe Schaefer and Genna Sarris did for Mayfield Middle School. For their “Make a Difference Project” in their Skills for Adolescence class, the two seventh graders wrote paragraphs for all 300+ students in the seventh grade.

They chose the assignment from a list provided by Mr. Face. The assignment was to“Write letters to classmates who might need a little cheering up, or someone you know who is going through a tough time,” but they took it a little further than a few students.

“We wanted to help out our school with self-confidence issues,” Chloe said. “It is needed throughout our grade and in the school.” The girls hoped to people feel good about themselves.

“If I got a letter it would make me feel really good,” expressed Genna. She also states that she worked hard to make sure that everyone had a letter to help boost their self-esteem.

When the girls were asked how they managed the task, they expressed that some paragraphs took longer than others depending on how well they knew the person. “Most people we already knew so it was easy, but others were harder because we didn’t know them as well,” says Chloe.

Genna says that though the task was time-consuming, she kept the thought in mind that it will be worth it in the long run. Each paragraph also took around five minutes to write. The girls split the work in half so they were both contributing to the shared project.

The paragraphs were filled with words of kindness and positive reinforcement such as compliments and words of encouragement. The girls made sure to compliment each student for his or her individual strengths.

When asked how they felt about distributing the letters Chloe and Genna expressed that it made them feel good about themselves because they felt as if they actually made a difference in their community.

According to drdavidhamilton.com, “the happy feeling you experience after performing an act of kindness is caused by the brain’s increased levels of endogenous opioids, or endorphins. An act of kindness can also release high levels of dopamine into the brain.” Many people express a feeling of happiness when they do something kind. This has been proven to help people’s mental health and anxiety.

According to Huffingtonpost.com, there was a study at Columbia University regarding people with anxiety disorders. The experiment asked for people with high anxiety levels to do simple acts of kindness over a period of time. Each person was asked to do at least six acts of kindness every week, and the results showed that this significantly improved mood. The people in the experiment expressed relief and increased happiness after performing a good deed.

Kindness is the act of doing something for another person without the expectation of having it paid back. Kindness can create a ripple effect in which one single act can make a huge difference.