Miah Mantilla
Affirmation Station to spread community and kindness around Century.
On April 25th, 2025, Century Middle School celebrated Day Without Hate by wearing t-shirts, hanging up posters, and running an affirmation station in the cafeteria.
Day Without Hate started at Standley Lake High School, because of the Columbine Shooting in 1999. The students there wanted to encourage love and nonviolence, and so they started the Day Without Hate.
“Day Without Hate is important to me because it’s a way where the whole world kind of unites for at least a day, and it can make everyone feel better,” says 8th grader Lucy Madera.
While a Day Without Hate is just a day, caring for others and being kind to them can easily become a habit that continues for life.
“It’s important because I think that we take things for granted, and it shouldn’t have to be one day, it should be everyday. Maybe this one day can turn into two days, then two weeks, then eventually every month,” explains Leadership teacher Mr. White.
An action Century took to spread kindness was running an affirmation station in the cafeteria during lunch for three days. During that time, students could write kind notes to their friends, which the leadership classes then delivered on the Day Without Hate to promote community.
“For me, Day Without Hate is really paying it forward, and making sure that we are all spreading patience, love, goodness, and hope to others. It’s not just saying we can[’t] have hate, it’s actually taking action to make sure that we don’t have hate,” says Social Studies teacher Ms. Pearson.
Day Without Hate is not just a day that you’re not allowed to hate, it’s a day where people have to come forward and come together in order for there to be less hate in the world.
“To spread the message of Day Without Hate, I’m wearing my Day Without Hate t-shirt. I’m also working with the teachers of the year all across the nation to spread the word, and we are actually doing some interviews that are going up on Youtube to help encourage other teachers to promote Day Without Hate,” explains Ms. Pearson.
Day Without Hate is really important and it brings awareness to things that we might have not noticed before, such as the sheer amount of hate in the world.
“It’s really important for all of us because we lose people every year to hate endeavors, to violent endeavors. More importantly, for us to realize all the small pieces of hate infiltrate in our lives, whether it’s through just school or the media. If we could just push back on that, it not only makes us more healthy and well, but it also creates a more peaceful and collaborative society where we’re happy, and don’t we all deserve to be happy?” asks Ms. Pearson.