Kevin Martinez

Spreading Good Messages

The books, Catcher in the Rye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower presented a variety of
sensitive topics like rape, alcohol abuse, and depression, that many teenagers today face. The
goal of the Help Heal Holden Project was too choose a common issue presented in both books
and take action on such issue, to seek change in our community. My peers and I committed to
studying the brain and analyzing the emotion and reaction. We began researching how simple
acts of kindness can have a dramatic positive influence on mood. I choose the topic of the study
the brain, because this main topic encompassed each and every topic of this project, whether its
drugs and alcohol, domestic violence, or sexual abuse, we quickly learned that only a horrible
childhood or negative experiences can lead to wrongdoings. My peers and I wanted to cut out the
middle feeling of anger, depression or the constant struggles of everyday life, by giving someone
something to smile about with a small gesture to brighten up their day. We began researching
which small actions leave the greatest impact and it seemed like a simple hello can make a
positive influence on ones mood. I wanted to reach our student population on a more personal
level than just a simple hello, so we baked countless pastries and written even more personal
letters, to brighten up the students at VISAs day. Our social experiment was conducted
around finals were everyones minds were at the peak of combustion, and a simple act of
kindness can make the biggest difference in revealing some stress from schoolwork. Researching
the brain was very fascinating, since it led to intricate studies such as, the direct connection
between happiness and academic progress. It only makes logical sense if one individual is
feeling depressed, their mind is elsewhere during academic studies, which reflect poorly on the
grades, whereas its the opposite for a happy student. I can personally relate to this topic in my
sophomore year of high school, were I didnt care about school or homework after a chance to go
to China was revoked. I felt that the revoking of the China trip, along with thirty weeks of
detention were unfair, and so I plummeted into a state of anger throughout my sophomore year,
which wasnt fair to my grade point average and is possibly holding me back into getting
accepting into a UC school. I realized if I just changed my attitude and got committed into my
studies, my chances of getting into the school of my dreams could be a reality. When I was
researching this topic extravagantly I became more passionate about helping the students at
VISA to have a positive attitude, to directly correlate with their academic progress.
The day of the actual spreading of good messages, was like any other day of finals weeks,
with the separate of clicks and conversation over how hard the test was. The goal was clear, my
peers and I were to spread hope and happiness throughout the campus, in order to bring
livelihood into their lives and each others grades. We took action by greeting every individual
we saw with awkward faces of uncertainty and by distributing pastries. Through simple
conversations every single person we met was smiling towards the end. Watching unhappy faces,
smile over something so simple, had a big impact by knowing that my peers and I made this
happen. Students gave us hugs, and confessed that, we made their day which further added

onto the gleeful feeling that was vibrant in the air. We asked the students how they felt after the
conversations, and many admitted that shared a common feeling of being content, that truly
made this project worthwhile. We took action within our school community to seek change in the
attitude of our student population and I feel like we were successful in seeing a positive change
by making new friends.
Around the same time I was also taking a political science class 5 classes that covered
western philosophys impact on politics today. One of the major components of these
assignments was the thesis paper and presentation the end of the term, which weighed heavily on
the overall grade. The paper was a portrayal of everything we learned throughout the course from
major political figures like John Locke to the current civil unrest in nations like Iraq. This final
paper was one of the longest papers I have written, which forced me to change my perspective
from a straight forward writing style, to a more mindful and organized way of producing my
thoughts. By organizing my ideas I became more familiar with the variety of sources that
amalgamated to my paper, giving me a more exact perspective of what I am going to write and
how I am going to write it. This paper definitely has set the tone for the future papers I will face
in my upcoming years.
Reflecting on the thoughtful conversations, I had with every student I met, changed my
perspective to be more positively inclined with my peers and my academic progress. I too
benefited from the small change; we were spreading around the school by connecting with every
student in every grade level, which just added onto the spreading of good messages. This project
was simple in content, but intricate to carry out, too positively reinforce happiness in our
students lives by portraying a friendly attitude instead of a negative one. A unique aspect about
this project was to vividly see an instant alteration of mood through something as small, as a
motivational typed strip and conversation over a pastry. I became aware of issues of that the
majority of our student populations are facing like school and depression. It was great to see how
the Help Holden Project, turned out to help Heal VISA.