Weaving Wellness Your Way—Spreading Kindness on Alma’s Campus

AUDREY HESTER
STAFF WRITER

2/17/2025

This February, Alma College is striving to spread kindness across its campus as part of an overall effort to improve the physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of its students, staff, and faculty. February has been Random Acts of Kindness Month nationwide for decades, and is a month of intentional efforts to spread positivity and intentional kindness in a spontaneous fashion.

“February is a great time to remind everyone about the importance of kindness, as it works nicely with Valentine’s Day and American Heart month. What better way to do something good for your heart than to do something kind for others.

Acts of kindness like gratitude, are contagious and free. Kindness behaviors have a ripple effect of compassion, you never know whose heart you might touch with a simple gesture of kindness,” said Tammy Griffin, Alma College’s Well-Being and Health Coordinator—and one of the members of the Weaving Wellness Your Way Committee.

On Alma’s campus, this has manifested in a number of ways: a poster of free compliments that can be distributed by students to students, yoga sessions on Mondays at the Stone Recreational Center, and free blood pressure screenings at the Wilcox Health Center.

There are also “Pass it On Postcards,” which are postcards where students record random acts of kindness they either create or observe on campus, and then pass them around to other students, creating a chain of kindness that can then be turned back into the Wilcox Health Center for a raffle prize drawing.

“We hope that students will grab a postcard and do something kind for someone and pass it on. We would love to get a lot of full postcards returned at the end of the month,” said Griffin.

“We hope that everyone on campus discovers the power of kindness and recognizes that it doesn’t have to cost anything or take a lot of time. It can be as simple as smiling at others as you walk around campus, holding a door for someone, offering to give someone a ride or to walk with someone, or listening and offering support to someone who needs it,” said Griffin.

“Random acts of kindness are nice to give and receive! It’s always a pleasant surprise when someone does something nice for me out of the blue. It’s also just nice to see how other people react to kindness. It brings me joy to give other people joy. You also just never know what other people are going through. It could really brighten someone’s day on a day that they’re struggling,” said Anna Fein (‘27).

While these events and practices occur in February, positivity and kindness can and should be a perpetual commitment. Random acts of kindness don’t have to be reserved for their particular month—in fact, the Weaving Wellness Your Way Committee would prefer that they are not, and that kindness can continue onwards across Alma’s campus regardless of the month.

“We hope that these acts of kindness continue beyond February and become regular practices on campus,” said Griffin.