Brooklyn Friends Students to Spread Love and Joy to Ukrainian Children
Can eight rising sixth graders change the world? One thing is for certain, don’t tell them that they can’t.
In early June, the eight students—Tess, Lucia, Natalie, Sarah, Rose, Letizia, Adrienne, and Lyla—entered into Head of School Crissy Cáceres’ office with a purpose. They had been there twice before to discuss their plans on how to honor the children of Ukraine and Russia. Not by raising money, or by sending items, but by raising awareness and sending love and support—to spread joy and knowledge and to strive for justice. They landed on a powerful concept—the BFS Love and Joy Campaign—to illustrate radical compassion among our students and their peers in Eastern Europe.
“I am always connecting to moments that bring to the surface exactly who Brooklyn Friends School is and this moment was so significant and emblematic of that,” said BFS Head of School Crissy Cáceres about when the Middle School students approached her with their ideas. “It was as beautiful in its simplicity as it was in its complexity. The magnitude of what we are wrapping our hearts and minds around is enough to overwhelm adults, and yet to have children distill all of this to humanity, to the place that feelings of love and joy have in our healing process and making a difference was a moment of tremendous pride and reflection and introspection about what matters most.”
The BFS Mission Statement reads, in part: Our graduates are compassionate, curious, and confident global citizens who let their lives speak in the spirit of leadership and service. It does not, however, mention fifth graders. Yet here they were, ready to let their lives speak very much in the spirit of leadership and service.
“We have strong voices and we can make a change,” one of the students said confidently. “We’re kids and people might not expect us to do much, but that’s frustrating because we can make change.”
Their overall plan is to create a campaign of Love and Joy and to spread the word throughout BFS, the Borough of Brooklyn, the City of New York, and beyond. The goal is that the group can curate messages of hope and expressions of love—written, illustrated, and spoken—and establish authentic relationships via a special web page. Their genuine wish is that these messages of love and empathy make their way to the children of Ukraine—to those who remain within their war-torn country and those who have been forced to flee to neighboring lands. But also to the children of Russia, innocent bystanders to their government’s actions.
“We want to make sure that everyone understands that the people of Ukraine do not want us to remember them for this war with Russia, but for how wonderful Ukraine is and the people are,” one of the young women shared.
At the end of one of the meetings, one of the students closed things out by reading a heartfelt poem she had written about the war in Ukraine. It was stunningly beautiful. They then stood up to go back to class, with excited student giggles as they walked out the door. After 60 minutes of intense, pointed conversation about making a difference in the world, we spoke about the incredible children they are as a reflection of all of our students at BFS.
“What matters most is the building of genuine relationships,” Cáceres said. “What our students are trying to do is to make sure that the place of love and joy is not forgotten as one of the greatest anecdotes to points of pain, challenge, discord, and hatred. They believe that together we can help change the world.”
This September, this mighty group of students will pick up where they have left off in June. Something tells us that they will be spending much of their summer time focused on this amazing initiative.
Please submit messages and artwork here.
Or, you can mail them to: Brooklyn Friends School, 375 Pearl Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Attention: Communications Department