LATROBE, PA – The Fred Rogers Institute, part of Saint Vincent College, will once again host its annual Kindness Campaign to honor the legacy of Fred Rogers. In partnership with the Citrone 33 Foundation and Saint Vincent College, the Fred Rogers Institute developed the Kindness Campaign to promote a culture of kindness, empathy and well-being across the SVC campus.
This campaign is grounded in the philosophy of Fred Rogers, whose name is synonymous with what it means to be kind and compassionate toward others. The initial goal of the Kindness Campaign was to showcase the importance of relationships, conversations and interactions around kindness through campus-wide events and social media posts.
The 2021 Kindness Campaign included 11 events across three weeks. At each event, students received free Kindness Campaign t-shirts and had the opportunity to enter a grand prize raffle for items from the SVC Bookstore. Social media posts throughout the Kindness Campaign shared ideas about ways to be kind, questions prompting reflection on kindness, quotes about kindness and reminders about events. The Fred Rogers Institute compiled stories from students, faculty and staff about kindness into the SVC Kindness Book, to be distributed at the start of the Kindness Campaign for 2022.
This year, the Fred Rogers Institute plans to bring back many of the well-received features from the 2021 Kindness Campaign, such as free t-shirts with a new design for 2022, with the added goal of increasing campus partnerships and deepening the impact of the Kindness Campaign. The 2022 Kindness Campaign will last one week, with 10 campus-wide events to once again highlight the importance of kindness in relationships and interactions. Events will begin on Monday, November 14, and will continue through Friday, November 18.
The Fred Rogers Institute is partnering with several other departments on campus, including the Global and Community Engagement Office and the Office of Multicultural Student Life, to hold a variety of events encouraging kindness towards self and others. Opportunities for students throughout the week of kindness include a Domestic Violence Awareness Discussion, Mindfulness Yoga, and a Kindness Scavenger Hunt for donation items for local organizations. Event details, including fun facts about kindness and quotes from Fred Rogers, will again be posted through Saint Vincent College social media.
New for the 2022 Kindness Campaign is the Kindness Passport, which will be distributed across campus throughout the week. Each Kindness Campaign event attended will earn one hole punch on the Kindness Passport, and students will receive one entry to a grand prize raffle of SVC Bookstore items for each hole punch they earn. Students can submit their Kindness Passports at the final Movie Night event of the week.