2017 SIC Service Awardee Madison Steel

Ages 16-18

Madison is a junior at Coronado High School and the Founder and President of the Random Acts of Kindness Club,  Growing up in northern California and later moving to Coronado as a freshman in high school, I have spent many years volunteering and getting involved in my communities. While visiting colleges in the Boston area this past summer, I came across a brochure from Boston College that featured a special community service group known as the Random Acts of Kindness Club. This fascinated me and quickly became my inspiration to create the Random Acts of Kindness Club at Coronado High School.  Our mission is to make our island a kinder place one act at a time. In addition to working with the school and the community of Coronado, we have broadened our horizons and are now getting involved with helping organizations in Mexico. A quote that we use to inspire both ourselves and other is, “If we all do one act of kindness daily, we just might set the world in the right direction – Martin Kornfeld”

Our club includes 40 individuals from freshman to seniors who have been involved in several of our projects since our inception in September of 2016. In our first meeting, we brainstormed a multitude of project ideas that would be considered random acts of kindness in our community. Our first large scale project was to write and design inspirational and positive notes for all students at Coronado High School. We then placed the positive messages in every locker so that each student at CHS felt special. It was wonderful to carry out this project and to see the positive impact that came from such a small act of kindness. Our most recent project was to show our gratitude toward the civil service members in our community. We decided to bake several hundred cookies and make posters thanking the police officers and firefighters of Coronado for keeping our community safe.

In addition to the projects done in Coronado, we also discussed doing “Random Acts of Kindness” outside of our community. I researched community service opportunities in Mexico involving women and children in need. I found an organization, Los Ninos del Capitan, located in Cabo San Lucas that is dedicated to helping children of single moms living in poverty and abuse. This organization is a school that helps children who are in constant danger of abuse, accidents and malnutrition. In both November and December, I had the opportunity to work at the school with 75 sweet, underprivileged children ages 1-5.  It was an honor to work with these children and to assist the teachers with games, art projects, singing songs and giving out hugs. The love that is shared throughout their safe haven is such a gift and a feeling that I will never forget. The fact that these children come from such horrible, threatening living conditions and still show so much love and joy is truly incredible. This was by far the most rewarding experience I have ever had.