By: Cheney Hurley –

A final project, woo… just what a senior in high school is dying to do right before graduation. What student wouldn’t want to have all of their time consumed by some school project leaving absolutely no free time? If you couldn’t tell by now there was a little sarcasm in the preceding sentences, but senior Abby Henjes is breaking the mold and making her final project something that matters to her. For her English class, Henjes is completing acts of kindness to see the positive impact these have on others and herself. This is not some project that Henjes is dreading or putting off to complete until the last minute; she is excited and passionate about this project.

“We get to choose what we do, but we have to learn something over the course of the semester. For my project I’m learning about how kindness can affect your life, so I’m doing 50 random acts of kindness throughout the course of the semester,” said Henjes.

With this project, Henjes could’ve chosen to do anything she wanted, but she ultimately decided to do something that she would enjoy because she knew it would be something that would consume the majority of her time. Another influence was her English 10D teacher Julie Krueger who assigned a project that required students to do an act of kindness in hopes of helping them realize that there are more important things than materialistic items.

“Kindness is something I’m passionate about and I love seeing kindness in the world. I think kindness can go a long way. If someone is kind to you, you want to be kind to other people,” said Henjes. “I think it can just brighten someone’s day because we all have bad days sometimes. It’s cool when you can change someone’s day around.”

Henjes has completed half of her acts of kindness, including cutting out coupons and putting them around the store for people to use, making a point to hold the door open for people, and taking homemade cookies to the local firemen which, so far, has become her favorite deed. As for her other 25 acts, Henjes has a list of ideas, but sometimes she is just in the moment and finds that what she is doing could be a truly random act of kindness.

“It was kind of difficult at first, thinking of all the ideas because 50 [acts of kindness] was more than I thought it would be. Finding the time to do it all [with] my busy schedule has been another struggle,” said Henjes.

Henjes has been volunteering practically her whole life, but says she really got involved when she was in sixth grade and joined her church’s youth group. Henjes would encourage everyone to start volunteering and being kind to others.

“Just making a pact that you are going to do one nice thing a day would be a great way to get started.”

How to get involved:

The Zoo Crew is a voluntary organization for youth that partners with Lincoln Children’s Zoo. According to the Zoo, there are 400 students between grades seven through twelve that volunteer here, including sophomore Brett Foster. Foster helps out by working with the little kids who are doing camps at the zoo and doing different things with the animals, like making diets for some of the larger animals there. Everyone who starts out at the Zoo Crew will start at level one and it does cost $120 for your first year of volunteering.

Each summer Bright Lights is looking for classroom assistants to do a wide variety of tasks, spanning from helping the teachers set up the classroom to playing and helping with the kids. According to the Bright Lights website, they are a nonprofit organization that takes learning beyond the classroom by engaging students with hands-on learning opportunities. Senior Megan Dlouhy volunteered here last summer and says you can fill out an application online where they ask you about personal information and some of your interests. You also need three references to be considered. If everything checks out, you choose what classroom you would like to assist in from a handful of classes and then you attend a group orientation before you start.

Bryan Hospital offers a teen volunteer program for high school students at Bryan East and West. They offer a variety of positions at both locations throughout the week. They ask that you make a four month commitment of one shift each week. Each shift is one hour and fifteen minutes. Sophomore Sara Petersen volunteers here every Thursday each week. She is a customer care escort and this entails delivering flowers to patients and showing visitors to their rooms or wherever they need to go. Petersen has been working here for two and a half years and says that to start volunteering here you go on Bryan Hospital’s website and set up an interview with one of the volunteer coordinators. You choose a day of the week and a position, get your flu shot and tuberculosis test, and then you are ready to start volunteering.