A Winning Week of Nice Dudes

By Campbell Kelly

Kindness spread like the flu through the SEM campus on the week of January 7-11 and even helped teams in their triumphs! “Dude. be nice” week showed that there is so much good in the world and on our campus. Throughout the week, a plethora of events, all coordinated by Becca Hammerman ‘19, brought out kindness and the “dude. be nice” message throughout our SEM community. The week of goodwill and great deeds was geared towards inspiring people to go out of their way to be nice and appreciating those who embody the “dude. be nice” message.

Hammerman’s inspiration for “dude. be nice” week was born at her beachtown. “I saw a ‘dude. be nice’ t-shirt and I told my parents about it,” she explained. “By the end of the day, we all had ‘dude. be nice’ shirts and we really liked the message it was trying to send!”

The “dude. be nice” slogan actually belongs to a positive vibes apparel company. It aims to radiate kindness and brighten people’s days through its clothes that all bear positive messages. Eventually, Hammerman got to meet, talk to, and know the founder and discovered that this clothing kindness campaign could land at her school. Well, it did last year!

Now in its second year of the “dude. be nice” project, the week-long program kicked off on a Monday, when Hammerman and her crew laid out the plans for the week. Almost every day was “Support a Sport” and the encouragement from students from students and faculty apparently paid off! Numerous records were broken on the swim team in their meet against Coughlin and they took the 75-15 win! Boys hockey won against Hull 6-0. Boys basketball won against Redeemer 44-42 with Dmitri Gnall’s thousandth point!

Numerous students, faculty, and staff were nominated for acts of kindness such as always willing to help with homework, holding the door, and being there for someone when they are down. Hammerman and her good vibe tribe sold shirts at lunch during the week and gave out hot chocolate on Tuesday. On Thursday, the artisan club and Ms. Ayers hosted the SEM community to create medallions of clay with messages to motivate kindness. At the end of the week, the people who most epitomize the “dude. be nice” message, Mr. Tony Yurska, Mrs. Rachel Bartron, Nikolai Stefanov ‘19, Dora Softic ‘20, Hope Austin ‘21, and Daniel Irwin ‘22, were given flowers and applauded during an assembly in recognition for their numerous and meaningful gestures of kindness.

Students, like Halle Kehl ‘19, welcomed the extra boost of positivity. “‘Dude. be nice’ week is a great way of bringing our community together and embracing our motto of truth, beauty, and goodness,” Kehl shared. Remembering to say something nice to our peers and teachers, saying please and thank you, and cleaning up messy lunch tables are more examples of the on campus kindness.

The week of events, Paige Parsons ‘20 revealed, brought out the best in all of us. “I thought ‘dude. be nice’ week was such a positive and amazing week for SEM. Spreading kindness and optimism throughout the school and campus really created a happy and loving environment and encouraged everyone to treat others the way they should be treated. ‘Dude. be nice’ week is always an awesome week at SEM!”

Hammerman’s hope for the future is that SEM’s “dude. be nice” week gets bigger and influences more and more people to spread kindness on and off of our campus. “I know as the years continue to go on, it will continue to get more extreme and will impact our community on a wider scale.” The impact on SEM was undeniable. After all, kindness is contagious and those who caught it and spread it during “dude. be nice” week felt instantly better by benevolence.