Monfredo: The Buddy Bench is Making a Difference in Our Schools

Saturday, October 19, 2019

John Monfredo, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

John Monfredo

It was two years ago that I placed an agenda item on the School Committee calendar for administration to look into having a “Buddy Bench” made and placed into our elementary schools. The idea was given to me by a good friend of mine and an outstanding educator, now retired, Deb Miller. She had seen the story of the Buddy Bench on Lester’s Holt’s “Inspiring America Series” on NBC. It was a story on kindness featuring a 9 year old who was striving to change the world one child at a time. After witnessing a fellow student alone and seemingly without a friend, she thought a lot about how that would feel and decided that she could not ignore it and needed to do something!

Proclaiming, “Everyone deserves a friend.” she worked with her teachers to create The Buddy Bench. They placed a beautiful shiny bright park bench on the playground. What was significant about the bench was the slogan, “A friend is only a seat away”, which was cut out or stamped out of the bench at the top of its backrest. The idea behind this concept was that the bench would become a tool to help bring students together and to have them included so if anyone ever felt alone or not included, they were encouraged to sit on the bench.

To my surprise, the group that picked up the idea were students at WSU in the Enactus program. It’s a program that believes students have the ability to make an impact in their community. The group assesses the needs in a community and works on a variety of projects in an effort to address those needs using entrepreneurial action and then sees through on the project from start to finish. Thus, one of their projects became the Buddy Bench. Funds for the material come from the Enactus funding efforts and from the business community including Home Depot and Lowes. The benches are built and installed by Worcester Technical High School carpentry department students under the direction of teacher Joseph Lonergan and painted by their painting department students.

Fast forward to 2019, at the present time 62% of the elementary schools have a “Buddy Bench” and the good news is that several more schools will be added to the list this year thanks to Enactus. The goal is to have every school have a “Buddy Bench” by 2021. With many new principals at our schools this year, I have asked administration to inform them about the “Buddy Bench” and the concept behind its purpose. We need to keep the conversation on kindness going forward.

Schools involved in the project hold assemblies with their students and discuss the importance of the bench and what it means for the school. The bench would not be successful without the schools talking about what the bench stands for and how it should be used in the schoolyard.

Now that the bench has been in operation for two years I have asked several schools if the bench is making a difference in the lives of their students. Principal Deborah Catamero at Burncoat Elementary stated that staff at recess time encourages students if they notice someone sitting there to go over and see the student and say hi or invite them to play with them. She went on to say that the bench also provide students with a place to sit and communicate with each other, read a book and watch others play basketball. She acknowledged, “In this world of social media, sitting and talking face to face is super important.”

Kathy Lee, principal at Thorndyke elementary school echoed the same at her school. Acknowledging that at various times during recess students will be on the buddy bench with arms around one another, talking and lifting one another’s spirits during a time when their “feelings” were hurt and they needed a friend. Then we see then go off to play. An important concept of the bench according to Principal Lee is that the “bench is thought of as a safe, non-judgmental place to retreat, and when a student is on the bench, we notice that the children will go over to them, talk with them. You will see them eventually joining them to play, even if it is as simple as sliding down the slide with them.

Another principal, Cindy Vail of Heard Street School, spoke about how the bench goes perfectly with the culture of the school. She stated. “We are now acknowledging and celebrating kindness, above and beyond behaviors and positive behaviors. The Buddy Bench goes along with this. It is so nice to see students not feeling isolated and playing alone. Teachers on duty at recess will remind students to use the bench to sit on if they need a friend to play with. It is then so nice to see students go over and ask that student to join them!”

The statements by the principals summarizes that the BUDDY BENCH has become a symbol of kindness that we all need to practice in this community. The schools are the catalyst for making it happen for kind acts need to be emphasized each and every day. Schools are trying to do their part in teaching the importance of kindness now we get the community to do their part?

Remember, Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind, and the third is to be kind. ~ Henry James