Who doesn’t need more kindness in their life? Last Wednesday, Associated Student Productions (ASP) invited students to come celebrate World Kindness day in Seawolf Plaza. Their hope was to bring the Sonoma State community together with kindness and thoughtful gestures. Michela Wang who works for ASP hosted this event. Wang planned the kindness event with the overall goal of practicing being kind to ourselves and those around us. One of the activities was writing positive mantras on a rock that would eventually go under the “tree of affirmation”. ASP was decorating “cookies of kindness” where students had the freedom to decorate their sweets however they liked. They also set up coloring stations and provided free tote bags so students could fill them up with goodies. 

Directly outside of the student center doors there was a written message that read, “what made you smile today?” With a pen, students contributed to the sign. Responses included: purchasing lip jam tickets, receiving their paycheck and walking around in platform shoes. Along with kindness activities, there were clubs tabling within Seawolf Plaza. Alpha Gamma Delta was seen tabling for their upcoming philanthropic event, LipJam. 

In an interview with the STAR, Michela Wang said, “I would love it if students take this event and make the practice of kindness something we reciprocate all the time, not just on World Kindness Day!” Wang also described actions that represent kindness, “I think that self-care, checking in with our friends and being mindful of how our words and actions impact others are some ways that we can always incorporate kindness into our everyday lives.” 

The National World Kindness day is usually in November but ASP decided to host the event in February to help uplift people during these cold winter months. Last week, Sonoma county issued a freeze warning due to the cold weather forecast. Students really enjoyed this event, even though the kindness day was cut an hour short due to the rain. It looked like students were having fun at the celebration. Students were seen laughing with their friends outside of the student center. Ashley Ventura, who is a third year at SSU said that, “There should be more kindness here at SSU and it should be something that is spread on a regular basis.”

If you were walking through the Seawolf plaza last week, chances are you probably saw the giant National Kindness mural painted on the ground in chalk. The art piece was created by fellow Seawolf, Ana Eisert. She said that the art piece took her two hours to draw. Ana took a detailed approach to the art piece. She explained how, “I made sure all the people standing on top of the world were different… each person had varying hair colors and skin tones.” Kaitln Kim, as well as the AS marketing committee helped her color everything in. Overall, Eisert thinks that the kindness event was a great event to attend. Her favorite part is that you don’t have to spread kindness to others, you can also spread it to yourself.