Our buddy bench can help kids make friends

As a Girl Scout, the second-highest award you can receive is the Silver Award.

The project you do to earn that award should be something that is meaningful to you and that helps the community. We have chosen to build a buddy bench for the elementary school that we both went to. This is a bench you can put outside on the school playground for anyone to sit on if they don’t have a buddy during recess. The idea is that if kids notice someone sitting on the bench, they should go over and invite that person to play.

It’s never a good feeling to think that you have no one to play with during recess or to be too shy to ask to be included in the game. The buddy bench is a great way to let others know that you’d like to be included. We will be going into all of the classes at our old elementary school and explaining the buddy bench to everyone.

Recess is a difficult time for kids who may not be very social, or who are feeling excluded by their peers. We hope kids will be eager to show kindness to anyone looking for a buddy and those kids who need a friend at recess will feel better about themselves and think more positively about school because they know they will be included and make new friends during what might usually be a difficult time of the day for them.