Gallery • 5 Photos

The finished product brightens the wall across from the lunch line.

What makes you happy? This is the question that Student Council asked when they launched the Positivity Project, an initiative designed to encourage positive thinking at RHS. To kickstart the Project, Student Council officers set up a craft station in the cafeteria during lunch periods last week. 

Students visited the craft station to decorate colorful pieces of paper with their responses to the question what makes you happy?

Throughout this process, as a Student Council officer, I watched students chatter, laugh, scribble out answers, and share them with their friends. 

By the end of the week, the submission box was overflowing.

After school on Friday, Student Council officers gathered outside of the cafeteria to sift through the submission box.

I noticed that some responses appeared over and over again: pets, friends, music, sleep. And the unique specificity of others made me laugh: Bill Hader, marzipan soap, dopamine.

Once we sorted the submissions, we covered the black pin board across from the lunch counter with cheerful yellow paper and arranged the submissions around our central question. 

As students waited in the lunch line on Monday, they read over the submissions, noticing their own and discussing others.

At a town hall meeting after school later that day, Student Council invited students to continue that discussion – to offer their feedback on the project. The consensus pointed toward the results we had hoped to see.

Senior John Jackson commented that, “someone wrote my name on the board, and it made my day.” The grin on his face as he said that made mine.

School can be tiring and discouraging. With the Positivity Project, Student Council hopes to encourage students to take stock of what they enjoy in life – to see the bright spots in the sometimes gloomy and overcast landscape of high school. 

And this Project won’t end when Student Council takes down the current display at the end of the month. At the beginning of March, Student Council will bring out the colorful art supplies again and ask a new question – a question that encourages students to take stock of what they enjoy in life.

What do you think our next question should be? To share your ideas, DM Student Council on Instagram @rbkstudentcouncil or shoot an email to [email protected].

Thank you to all students who participated!