JAMESVILLE-DEWITT SCHOOL DISTRICT – Adding to the warmth of a cup of coffee and brightening customers’ days a little more, Moses DeWitt Elementary School teamed up with Cafe Kubal this past week by supplying the shop with student-made drink sleeves featuring uplifting messages.
The local collaboration was their way of joining the global Great Kindness Challenge held Jan. 27 through 31.
The annual anti-bullying initiative began in 2012 to promote respect, generosity and unity across districts in 115 countries, with that creating an ever-growing amount of school-wide cultures of compassion and chalking up a billion-plus individual acts of kindness worldwide.
Moses DeWitt has been participating in the movement the past four years with the school’s social worker Sarah Hayes spearheading its weeklong event.
After she came to Principal Mary Sylvester with the idea and was given the go-ahead, Hayes contacted Café Kubal owner and founder Matt Godard, who was instantly on board with it as well.
On the front end, 250 students grades pre-K through fourth grade at the elementary school decorated a total of 1,000 coffee sleeves with positive handwritten messages and their own unique artistic touch.
Those were then slipped onto beverage purchases handed out at the Cafe Kubal closest to Moses at 2218 E. Colvin St. and other colorfully designed cups were hung nicely from the shop’s ceiling.
“It’s absolutely a great way for people to start their day,” Godard said. “Just knowing these kids are learning about being kind is just a beautiful thing.”
He said teaming up with the school “aligns exactly” with the reason he wanted to start his cafe in the first place: to make Syracuse a better place to live and be involved in the community in a positive way.
Judging by the visible impact the cups were having right from the start of the week as a mood booster and a welcomed distraction from the chilly weather of January, Godard said it goes to show that spreading kindness cheers up the giver as much as the receiver.
The artwork-adorned messages said such things as “anything is possible,” “have a good day,” “you are loved” and “smile big!”
Hayes said the coffee at Cafe Kubal are “bumped up a notch” by the various kind-hearted messages and fun, bright designs.
“It helps our kids feel good to have them know they’re contributing to something bigger than themselves and to see the impact they can have,” Hayes said. “I think that’s the point of the whole Great Kindness Challenge.”
Though their teachers assisted at times, the kids were given free rein artistically. Hayes said the students—all of them always up for the task of being creative—were also excited to get to color on an object other than paper, and they took pride in both their end results and the fact that their handiwork would be shared with people out in the community.
The school’s involvement in the Great Kindness Challenge has also included the collection of donations and the creation of care packages with toothbrushes, snacks, deodorant, tissues and wipes for Syracuse’s Rescue Mission.
“It’s amazing when everyone works together what can be accomplished in just a short amount of time,” said Hayes, whose position as a school social worker also entails helping students with day-to-day behavioral challenges, showing them how to cope with their emotions and build resiliency skills, being a resource for families going through personal struggles, and organizing school-wide initiatives like not only the team-up with Cafe Kubal but also donation drives for families in need during the holiday season.
Moses DeWitt’s kindness week this year began with a morning assembly in its gym on Monday, Jan. 27, during which the student body gathered to watch the international initiative’s official 2025 kickoff video on thegreatkindnesschallenge.com in addition to reviewing what they’ve already learned about kindness and empathy, displaying the sign language for the word “kindness,” doing a group cheer, and reading a poem about kindness before closing with a minute of mindfulness.
Over the ensuing days, the school put on a spirit week. That Monday the theme was dressing in mismatched ways, while on Tuesday everyone wore their favorite sports team gear, followed by a hat day and a day when everyone had the chance to wear their comfiest clothing.
In past years, the school’s efforts for the annual Great Kindness Challenge have included making individual checklists of good deeds for students to work toward, putting up classroom posters with suggested kind acts such as telling someone a funny joke or helping someone clean up, and a “kindness cart” filled with sponsored treats and other items that was pushed around the school and meant to lift teachers’ spirits.
This year, to go along with the collaboration with Cafe Kubal, there was also a kindness table at lunchtime and a chain stretching through the hallways of the Jamesville Road school linking stapled strips of recycled paper (to be kind to the earth) as a visual representation of different kind acts done within the school.