On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Gracie McHugh gave a speech to the Abbot-Downing School assembly about her dream: a playground bench where lonely kids could find friends and feel included.
Now, her dream is becoming a reality.
“I think about a dozen kids spoke at the Martin Luther King Day, and for just this idea we thought, ‘We can actually create that,’ ” Abbot-Downing art teacher Nathan Shartar-Howe said. “It has an actual product.”
Gracie, a fifth-grade student, designed the plan for a double-sided “friendship bench” for the Abbot-Downing playground. The bench will be open to everybody but is designed with children feeling lonely or left out in mind.
“I thought of it like everybody should have somebody to play with at recess time,” she said. “If someone is alone, they go sit on the bench, and then somebody would go over to them and ask them to play.”
Kathleen Riordan, principal of the elementary school, said she hopes the bench will create an environment of acceptance and understanding.
“I think there’s always a need for that level of compassion and empathy in kids,” she said. “And that’s what this will be – it will be a vehicle for kids to be able to express that empathy.”
Riordan recruited Shartar-Howe to help build the bench and supervise the project, which was funded by the PTO. Gracie and her friends spent their recess time in the art room for the past couple of weeks, working to finish the project by the end of the school year.
“Our expectation is if you see someone there, come over, give them a smile and invite them to join you in your game,” Riordan said.
Fifth-grader Hannah Golden, who helped Gracie paint the bench, said it will be especially helpful to younger students and those new to the school.
“You’re making other people feel more special,” Hannah said.
She and Gracie hope to have the bench fully painted and in place by the end of the school year. Even though they won’t get to use it much, it’s more about future students who will attend their school, they said.
Abott-Downing hopes to use the idea of the “friendship bench” to launch a fifth-grade legacy project, where students would paint a wall or construct an object to leave their mark on the building.
“This could be the beginning of something for future classes – like a class gift,” Shartar-Howe said. “They’re leaving something behind for the next class.”
As McHugh’s time at Abbot-Downing comes to an end and she prepares for middle school, she hopes students – including her younger sister, Clara – will use the “friendship bench” for years to come.
“We were supposed to write something that was a problem in the world that we could find a solution for. And I came up with that,” she said. “Nobody should really feel left out.”
(Katie Galioto can be reached at 369-3302 or kgalioto@cmonitor.com.)