WOODLAND THIRD-GRADERS SWEEP SCHOOL WITH KINDNESS

MARBLE HILL -- Third-grade students at Woodland R-4 School aren't very secretive about their Random Act of Kindness because they're having too much fun with it.

Each afternoon students clean their classrooms and hallways so that custodian Bill Davault can leave work early.

"I've gotten notes and gift certificates before but nothing like this," said Davault, who will retire at the end of the school year.

A few handwritten notes of thanks are taped to a door where he keeps cleaning supplies. He has even received a colorful certificate of appreciation from students for his hard work.

Davault has been school custodian for 33 years. His usual cleaning routine includes stops at 14 classrooms, two mobile homes and two offices at the elementary wing. Davault usually finishes work by 5:30 p.m., but this week he is leaving a half-hour earlier.

And the 77 third-graders at the school don't really mind forfeiting their recess since the work is fun.

"You'd better believe it's fun," Dustin Benefield said of his duties Tuesday. He collected trash from each of the three second- and third-grade classrooms.

Students have watched Davault clean the building before so they knew what kind of work he did, said Teri Burke, a teacher who helped organize the project.

Each afternoon during recess, students take turns cleaning chalkboards, sweeping classrooms and hallways and emptying trash cans in their classrooms. They will each work about twice during the week, Burke said, explaining that the job takes 30 minutes.

"And they just love it," she said. "They'll do just about anything to get out of work." With only two weeks of classes left, students are more than happy to help out a friend and put off other tasks, especially school work.

For the past week, students have been talking about kindness and ways to perform kind acts, Burke said. Throughout the week they are covering a bulletin board near the office with lists of their kind activities.

Each child has a kindness sheet to list their activities outside of school. Some recent acts of kindness, they said, include "waking up before anyone forced me to," "making breakfast for my mom," and "not fighting with my sister."

But the list doesn't stop there: Before Friday, the bus drivers, cooks, secretaries and teachers at the school will receive letters of appreciation from the students. On Monday some third-grade students delivered snacks to their secret pals in the second grade. "But we can't tell names because it's a secret," said Nick Hendricks.

To kick off the week of activities, students created Mother's Day cards and coupons for their families, Burke said. "It caught on with their ideas. We stressed that it's easy to be kind to your good friends, but they should also be kind to everyone."