Powerschool GoGuardian Naviance Aimsweb Semstracker EdReflect SchoolDude Virtual Paragon Frontline Alio Service Portal

Chains of Change

If one happened to be  browsing through the shelves of the library at Woodland Regional High School, one would notice that the library has some unique looking decorations.

A paper chain, just like the ones little kids make at Christmas time by making strips of paper into loops and linking them together, stretches around the library. A closer look at the chain reveals, you would notice that each link on the chain is made out of a black or gold strip of paper and written on each one is a description of a “random act of kindness.” Definitely not your average Christmas decoration.

This chain is known as the Chain of Change. The chain began in February, in memory of the victims of the school shooting in Newtown last December. Students were encouraged to preform 26 random acts of kindness and document their acts on the links that were then attached to the chain.

This year, Senior, Jessica Jecusco has taken on the Chain of Change as her senior project.

“When I filled out chain links, I felt really passionate about preforming random acts of kinds,” said Jecusco. “I was motivated to encourage others to preform random acts of kindness as well, so that’s why I decided to take it on as my senior project.”

 

Jecusco encourages students and staff at Woodland to not only fill out links for random acts of kindness they preform but also for acts of kindness that people preform for them. She also wants people to fill out the links if they are a witness to someone preforming an act of kindness. Students and staff can fill out their links in library and leave them in the Chain of Change drop box for Jesucso to attach to the chain.

The project has been a great success at Woodland so far. The chain in library has 229 links on it, and smaller chain of 38 links is showcased in a display case.

Jesusco also decided to extend the program to Long River Middle School.

“They have a bulletin board about the project in their main hallway where they will display their chain,” said Jesuco.

She also hopes to extend her message to the elementary schools in the district as well.

“The week before the anniversary of the Newtown shooting I plan to make a video showing the impact the Chain of Change project has had on our schools,” said Jesuco. “Then I’m going to send the video to the Newtown School district so families and friends of the victims can see the results.”

Jescuo has created two Facebook pages for the project, one for Woodland and one for Long River, so that students and staff can keep up the progress of the project.

“Overall, I hope the Chain of Change encourages people to do nice things for others simply because they want tom” said Jescuo.

For more information on the Chain of Change visit these Facebook pages:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/LRMSWildcatsChainofChange

https://www.facebook.com/groups/hawkschainofchange/