Community Corner

Little Kids, Big Hearts: Newtown Children Lead the Way in Kindness

Learn how easy it is to inspire future acts of everyday compassion.

By Angela Gaul

Mark DeLoughy is just one of those kids.

At 9, he's already mildly famous around his Connecticut home of Newtown as a cheerful, dedicated door opener for one and all.

After a flight during a recent family vacation, he made a point of seeking out his airplane pilot to award him a special green-and-white duck — the colors of his school, Sandy Hook — and now a family tradition to mark the kindness of others.

It also goes deeper. Last December, when his school was under siege, Mark demonstrated kindness almost beyond comprehension. At a time when most adults would have been frozen with fear, Mark calmed his crying third-grade classmates and helped lead them out to safety.

For that, he was one of several children to receive a Charlotte Bacon Act of Kindness Award, his for bravery. The awards were created to make sure children are recognized and rewarded for these types of powerful acts, large and small. They are named after 6-year-old Charlotte Bacon, who was one of the 26 victims that day.

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"Being kind is important because if bullies are around, then people will be able to stop them," said Mark. “Do an act of kindness that you can do and not something that you want to do just to win.”

Building a movement

Awards co-founder Aaron Carlson is building on their initial success and is eager to draw attention to even more children who embody kindness for the second annual awards. Further, he and his group Newtown Kindness are committed to helping children “pay it forward" with contributions to charities of their choice.  

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To reach his goal, Carlson has launched a project on PatchWorks, Patch’s online funding platform to empower people to improve their community or help neighbors. They are looking to secure $2,000 by July 31. All donations go directly to a kind child, or to a charity of their choice.

You can help by donating online here.

Recent winners include Alyson Oleyar, 7, and Laura Crowley, both 7, both of Monroe, Conn. They raised $500 for Wounded Warriors through their Cool Kids Care carnival. They are also creating journals for the Sandy Hook Elementary School survivors.

Natalie Horn, 10, Lindsay Dievert, 11, and Shannon Jackman, 11, all of Newtown, Conn., created the Charlotte Bacon Chain of Love, an art project and Facebook page that encourages showing love.

Contributing to the Charlotte Bacon Kindness Award will ensure these kids and other keep getting support, Carlson said.

The story behind the awards

It was Christmas Eve 2012. Carlson, who co-founded Newtown Kindness and the awards with Charlotte Bacon’s parents Joel and JoAnn, wanted to do something — anything — to lift the heavy blanket of shock and sadness that had settled over Newtown.

He also wanted to help his daughter, Ava, who was friends with Charlotte.

He took Ava that night to see the candlelit memorial of stuffed animals and flowers in the heart of Sandy Hook.

There he met Scott Morgan, an elementary school principal from Little Rock, Ark. who was there to deliver 26 engraved Christmas ornaments to decorate 26 Christmas trees outside the school, one for each victim. His students, some 1,300 miles apart from Newtown, had raised $950 to buy them in just a few days.

Carlson began to realize these acts of kindness, from one child to another, were unfolding everywhere.

“We saw all of this goodwill coming towards our community, and we decided that we had to act," Carlson remembered. The kindness contest quickly attracted followers and submissions from nearly every state in the U.S.

"Our top priority is to raise awareness,” Carlson said. “We also know we need some funds to keep the energy moving in terms of recognizing children and being able to encourage and inspire new acts of kindness.”

To contribute to other PatchWorks projects in Newtown:

Sandy Hook Peaceful Arts

This grassroots program is working to set up a peace education program through a series of school and after-school workshops where kids and the community can come together to learn about peaceful practices. Peaceful Arts programs have already benefited those who have experienced suffering in the Boston Marathon Bombings and the tornado-ravaged Moore, Okla. Sandy Hook Peaceful Arts was born out of a desire to provide healing and growth to the Newtown Community. They are seeking to raise $5,230 to start the program.

Donate to the Sandy Hook Peaceful Arts Education Program

Healing Newtown

Immediately following the Sandy Hook shooting, Newtown was flooded with artistic contributions from around the country, including donations of artwork, supplies, and proposals for memorials. Healing Newtown was created to manage this incredible outpouring of support, and now they need a permanent place to present all of these donations and ongoing arts programming. Managed by the Newtown Cultural Arts Commission, their goal is to raise $10,000.

Donate to the Healing Newtown Arts Program

We Are Newtown

In memory of each of the Sandy Hook victims, ‘We Are Newtown’ is raising $2,000 for the purchase and installation of 26 granite benches, engraved with the victims’ names. The benches will be installed together at an “understated, low-key, respectful site.”

Donate to the Sandy Hook memorial.

Great Newtown Reunion

You can help Newtown alumni from around the globe come together to support each other and to heal. Alumni from the Class of 1949 have already RSVP’d for this major event on July 27. Organizers say any level of help will make it a success. This group is raising $5,000 to support Newtown alumni.

Donate to the Great Newtown Reunion

Sarah Cocchimiglio contributed to this report.


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