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Embracing

Kindness

From a bat mitzvah project to
Jewish values, the world could
use a little more kindness.

RONELLE GRIER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

W

hen Jolie Oleshansky, 12, was decid-
ing on a service project for her
upcoming June bat mitzvah at
Temple Israel, her thoughts kept circling back
to one word: kindness. How could she help her
friends and fellow students be kinder to one
another, at school and in the community?
She found the answer in Samaritans365,
a national program designed to spread the
concept of kindness in schools throughout the
country.
After learning about the program from fam-
ily friends who started a similar club in their
daughter’s elementary school in Boca Raton,
Fla., Jolie decided to make West Hills Middle
School, where she is a seventh grader, the first
school in Michigan to start a Samaritans365
club.
“My mom always talked to us about being
kind, so I thought it was the perfect project for
me to do,” Jolie said.

Her mother, Melissa Oleshansky, a licensed
psychologist and certified yoga instructor, was
intrigued. The family lives in West Bloomfield.
“I asked her to do some research and present
it to me,” she said. “She did a lot of research on
the (Samaritans365) website about what needs
to be done.”
Melissa learned she and Jolie would need to
complete separate two-hour online programs,
one geared toward adults and one for students,
to become certified “kindness ambassadors.”
They also would need to enlist the support of
the school principal and find a teacher willing
to sponsor the club.

SCHOOL SUPPORT

Rob Durecka, principal of West Hills Middle
School, part of the Bloomfield Hills School
District, responded enthusiastically and con-
nected Jolie and her mother to Gary Raines, the
teacher who sponsors the Student Leadership
Club for grades 4-5.
“I was interested for several reasons in sup-
porting the club at West Hills,” Durecka said.
“In our world today, there are times when kind-
ness seems to be in short supply, and any group
who aims to grow the level of kindness in our
world is attractive to me. As a school, we aim
to empower our students to take action, and
actions that further kindness seemed to be an
excellent connection for our students.”
Raines agreed to partner with Samaritans365,
agreeing it would be a valuable addition to the
Student Leadership Club.
“At West Hills, teachers work hard to educate
students about the importance of taking action
to make their community a better place,” Raines
said. “Samaritans365 certainly does that by

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February 15 • 2018

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