\u201cThere\u2019s nothing quite like it,\u201d said Tyszka, an English major<\/a> on the writing track who is minoring in visual strategy<\/a>. \u201cI thought, \u2018I want to see this on campus.\u2019 And once the proposal was approved, it was just a matter of deciding who was going to join me on that journey.\u201d<\/p>\n Tyler Tewell \u201925 soon joined as vice president. ARK\u2019s leaders for the 2023-2024 academic year will also include Brock Eastman \u201925, Kaia McMullen \u201927, Rutu Patel \u201925, Alysha Matthews \u201924 and Sarah Chingwena \u201927. The club\u2019s GroupMe<\/a> community has grown to about 70 members, Tyszka said.<\/p>\n One of the club\u2019s biggest events so far has been \u201cGiving the Gift of Kindness,\u201d where members assembled gift bags filled with treats and friendly notes, then spread out across campus to hand them to any students, staff or faculty they happened to pass by.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a great way to uplift somebody\u2019s day,\u201d said Tyszka. \u201cWe normally do it around stressful times like midterms or finals, just to lift the campus energy and bring some goodness onto the campus.\u201d<\/p>\n She said \u201cGiving the Gift of Kindness\u201d has been working, and recalled an Instagram message<\/a> from a student who had been handed a bag during exam season.<\/p>\n \u201cThe letter in her bag told her \u2018Don\u2019t worry about finals; you\u2019re more than your academic achievements,\u2019\u201d said Tyszka. \u201cAnd she told us, \u2018I really needed that. You all made me feel so much better about everything that I was doing and just reminded me that I\u2019m a human.\u2019 It\u2019s such a great experience to be able to share that we\u2019re not always perfect, and we\u2019re just doing our best, and that\u2019s good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Although ARK\u2019s members are certainly touching other students, they are also enhancing their own skills in everyday leadership<\/a> that they can use after graduation, said the group\u2019s advisor, Caroline Davis<\/a>, a visiting assistant professor of theatre arts.<\/p>\n \u201cEvents like these celebrate leadership as the everyday act of improving others\u2019 lives in small but meaningful ways,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n Students can exchange encouraging notes in the Acts of Random Kindness mailbox in the Trone Student Center. \/ Credit: Alice Tyszka \u201925<\/p><\/div>\n In the coming year, ARK will also continue the \u201cTake a Note, Leave a Note\u201d initiative it launched in Spring 2023, encouraging students to stop by a special mailbox in the student center\u2019s Print and Post Express (P2X<\/a>) while they pick up their regular mail.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had P2X set up a table where students could take a note or leave a note,\u201d Tyszka said. \u201cIt\u2019s something students can do easily whenever they want, and it\u2019s a great way to spread or receive kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n During Summer 2023, Tyszka and the rest of the ARK leadership team are excited to plan the next year of spreading positivity across campus \u2013 and they\u2019re happy to get more students involved.<\/p>\n \u201cThe students have some great new ideas for this coming year, including more outreach initiatives and social events, which can only continue to add to Furman\u2019s mental health efforts and its commitment to student belonging<\/a>,\u201d Davis said. \u201cOur activities will continue to promote a broader sense of community throughout the university.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Furman\u2019s growing Acts of Random Kindness Club is dedicated to uplifting the campus community \u2013 one simple gesture at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":26454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,27,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-student-life","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2023\/06\/ARK-bags.jpg\")
Tyszka founded the ARK Club with a mission to \u201cuplift all students and staff within Furman University, as well as members of our community, through random acts of kindness.\u201d She brought the idea with her from Clover, South Carolina, where she had been president of her high school\u2019s ARK Club, part of a nationwide network<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2023\/06\/ARK-Mailbox.jpg\")