The Student Government Association (SGA) passed a bill enacting that today, Nov. 13, be Random Acts of Kindness Day at TCU this semester.

Set around the same time as the SGA mental health awareness campaign, the Founder’s Statue tabling event is intended to promote kindness and positivity across campus.

“From opening a few more doors for others to buying the people behind you in the Chick-fil-a line lunch, little actions of random and unsolicited kindness will go a long way,” said co-writer of the bill and Honors College representative Katie Kovarik.

The event included passing out flowers and donuts to students and a space to write messages of encouragement to each other.

“I think little kindness actions like these will really pull the community together,” sophomore Brooke Wertzberger said. “It’s already somewhat of a small school, but it’ll really make us all kind of have more love for each other. And even if you don’t know each other, it’ll grow the community in ways that we can reach out to others just for help or a smile or kindness, random little things like that that can make someone’s day slightly better.”

Although the bill writers believe kindness should be promoted every day, they said they want Nov. 13 to start a chain-like reaction of kindness.

“The purpose of Random Acts of Kindness Day isn’t to discourage kindness on other days, but to make students more aware of how their actions impact others,” said Kovarik.

Kovarik and Neeley representative and co-writer of the bill Ryan Chandler were both inspired by past high school experiences to bring more kindness to TCU.

While serving as Student Body President of his high school, three of Chandler’s friends committed suicide in the span of three weeks. He decided to start a Random Acts of Kindness campaign.

“These small acts dramatically shifted the atmosphere at my school, and spreading love totally conquered everything that was going on,” said Chandler. “My current philosophy is to find love and spread it, and that brings happiness to everyone.”

Kovarik also started a similar campaign at her school where students put clothing pins on each other’s backpacks to spread kindness to a fellow classmate.

SGA representatives voiced their support for the bill being one of the few to pass with 100 percent approval.

College of Fine Arts representative Patton Maynard agreed that this could have a huge benefit for the student body.

“Regardless of the cost that’s on that board, if it saves one life, if it keeps one person from thinking about depression from just sinking into that rut, then it’s worth it.”

Chandler and Kovarik worked together to combine random acts of kindness and Community that Cares-SGA’s mental health initiative.

“We talked about things that were really impactful to us in high school and thought what TCU would benefit from,” Kovarik said. “We thought that spreading kindness and emphasizing student kindness towards one another would be an awesome day.”

SGA’s Community that Cares mental health awareness lasts for three days, and each day has a different initiative.

“What we wanted to focus on the first day was students caring about one another and everybody else’s mental health,” Kovarik said. “We were lucky enough to take our random acts of kindness day and pair it with this program [Community that Cares].

Chandler hopes that the spreading of kindness can make a difference across campus.

“I know people are passing it on and hopefully we can create a very positive atmosphere today,” he said. “Just spread love, not just today, every day. Just be kind.”