The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) at Westwood is participating in the #KindnessMatters movement.

Last year, eighth grade student Peyton James from Georgetown, Texas, committed suicide after being bullied relentlessly for years. In response to James’ death, his mother started a movement she calls #KindnessMatters, with the purpose of reminding people everywhere that words have a huge impact, and to chose what you say carefully.

“At FCA, we try to support service, be selfless, and do community projects to symbolize sacrifice for others,” FCA sponsor Ms. Brisa Ochoa said. “This project is [about] a student who was bullied, and, because of that, he took his own life. He had so much love for everything he did: he loved reading, video games, and was just the sweetest kid that I’ve met.”

This project is important for many kids, especially the members of FCA. The club met up after school and created orange hearts with uplifting words on them to brighten their fellow students’ days.

“This project that we are doing is very important because it’s really real and it happens all the time,” Courtney Marcus ‘16 said, “and people don’t realize how serious it is until it happens to them.“

Everyone can benefit from receiving compliments — high schoolers in particular. There is so much pressure to get perfect grades, have lots of friends, and participate in extracurricular activities; sometimes it’s nice to be appreciated for all you do.

“We are doing a project on helping people, giving them a better day and giving them a bunch of compliments,“ FCA member Kyle Veroza ‘18 said.

There are tons of kids who want to come together and help others, and FCA is making that possible for the students at Westwood. With all the activities they do, members of FCA really are making a difference in their community.

“I think that FCA is so important because it brings us together at a place where there’s not always a group of people who are Christian,” Kayla Grimes ‘17 said. “There’s not always people with such a positive attitude, and I think that it’s great that we have a place where we can come and do projects like this, and I really hope this year people really find out about it and it really matters to them.”