Amy Hylen ’25 all-in as an agent of kindness, on campus and beyond

February 17, 2023
By Elizabeth Syverson '23
hylen

Amy Hylen ’25

In honor of Random Acts of Kindness Day, celebrated on February 17 each year, Amy Hylen ‘25 shared her love for the Random Acts of Kindness Club (RAK) at Saint Michael’s College.

Hylen first heard about RAK when she toured the College, so joining in the fall of her first year was an obvious decision. “Growing up in high school, volunteering was always such a part of who I am. When I found out they had a Random Acts of Kindness club here, that was the cherry on top for me,” Hylen said. “I remember coming to a club fair, and the girls were just the sweetest ever and they had so much pep and lively energy. They were just amazing.”

At the end of last year, Hylen became co-president of RAK, one of her favorite positions that she holds on campus. “I work with the most amazing people. And literally, we just get to spread kindness and joy and love and peace, for free!”RAK logo

The club meets approximately every Tuesday, but members are able to attend whenever they want, Hylen said. “Anytime people come, we welcome them with open arms, and we’re just so grateful that they can be there.”

Last fall, the club completed 13 projects, likely a single-semester record, Hylen said. “We do projects pretty much back to back. We don’t really even rest in between because we have so many ideas.”

kind board

A recent campus bulletin board project of the Random Acts of Kindness club.

Two projects  that RAK has completed so far this semester are lunch notes in the Alliot Student Center and Valentine’s grams. For the Alliot lunch notes, members of RAK wrote positive and uplifting messages on post-it notes and put them on all the napkin holders in the Green Mountain Dining Room. For the Valentine’s grams, Hylen said RAK took inspiration from the highly successful candy cane grams and ghost grams from the previous semester. Students had the ability to write personal notes on heart shaped cards, which RAK then delivered to the residence doors of the recipients.

“Kindness is, I think, one of the least costly, yet most powerful agents of change we have to create a positive ripple effect that can change the world,” Hylen said. “Because of one act of kindness, you can pass it on to another person, then to another, and so on. The ripple effect never stops.”

In December, Hylen expanded her ripple effect beyond the Saint Michael’s College campus, to the Dean S. Luce School in her hometown of Canton, Massachusetts. When Hylen told Jammie Carty, the librarian of the Luce School (and her aunt) about her work with RAK at Saint Michael’s, Carty decided it would be a great fit for her students.

jc

Jammie Carty

Carty posted sign-ups for a “RAK Kids Club” at the Luce School that became overwhelmingly popular, Hylen said. So many students registered that Carty had to divide the club into three different trimesters and add a second meeting day each week to allow all the kids a chance to participate. Even with this division, each club meeting has between 25 and 30 students.

“They’ve done so many different projects, but her biggest is this ‘kindness challenge,’” Hylen said. “It’s almost like kindness bingo, and if you complete all these different random acts of kindness, then you go on the kindness leaderboard, and you get to write your name. And then you become a steward of kindness.”Luce logo

Over winter break, Hylen had the opportunity to attend one of the RAK Kids Club meetings that she inspired. “I was totally in my element,” she said. During her visit, they made “kindness confetti cards,” where the students wrote thank you notes to various members of their communities, then put confetti inside. “So the idea is to sprinkle kindness like confetti,” Hylen said. “They were so adorable.”

As an elementary education and psychology double major, Hylen said that she hopes to continue to spread kindness through incorporating RAK into her future classroom.

“Through being a teacher, it’s the only profession that actually impacts or influences the creation of every other job. So creating this message of kindness that kids can carry with them to whatever job or profession or career they pursue in the future is so powerful,” Hylen said.

“We’re teaching kids that there’s this magic and power inside of them that’s completely all their own. It’s like superpowers that no one else has in them or will ever be them again. They can use these superpowers to be the change they wish to see in the world.”

“One of my favorite quotes is, ‘let your light shine and inspire others to do the same.’ I feel like as a teacher, that is my goal. Whether they’re a firefighter or an engineer or a delivery person, no matter what they’re doing, they can take kindness with them, and be a powerful agent of change for goodness in the world.”

Follow us on social.