The power of positive thinking

Last Tuesday, the night before the first day of school on Shelter Island, a group of eight seniors entered the darkened school building.

They were on a mission.

But this was not a senior prank or some sort of unauthorized invasion. Rather it was a sanctioned gathering of the members of the Shelter Island National Honor Society who were intent on ensuring the school year got off on a positive note, literally.

Their method of attack?

The ubiquitous sticky note.

In an interview at the school earlier this week, the students and NHS advisor Janine Mahoney, who joined them on their nighttime mission, explained the goal of the project was to write notes of encouragement on apple shaped sticky notes and apply one to each of the lockers belonging to students in grades 6 through 12. That way, when the students showed up on their first day, regardless of how they felt about school in general or the end of summer in particular, each would be greeted by an uplifting message to start the year off right.

The idea came from a news story Ms. Mahoney saw on Facebook over the summer about an Arizona school that had done just that and received terrific feedback. She sent the link to senior Julia Labrozzi, NHS president, who agreed it was a great idea and operation sticky note was born.

“Not everyone is necessarily happy about coming back here,” Ms. Labrozzi said. “It’s nice to see something on your locker that makes you happy and lifts you up.”

Soon, all the other NHS members were on board to lend a hand as well.

“I loved the idea,” said Sophia Strauss.

While the Arizona school that inspired the sticky note project had thousands of students (and lockers) to cover, it was pretty clear that scale wouldn’t be an issue here. A couple hours on that one night was all it took.

“Since we have a small school, we knew it would be easy to do,” explained Nicolette Frasco.

“And we thought it would be good for starting the school year,” added Olivia Yeaman.

So at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 6, the NHS crew (which also included seniors Melissa Frasco, Will Garrison and Olivia Yeaman) and Ms. Mahoney set up in a classroom armed with colorful Sharpies and sticky note pads and began writing notes of encouragement — 136 of them to be exact.

“You can do this!”

“Have a great day!”

“Be positive!”

“Welcome back”

“Smile!”

While it may seem like a little thing, the NHS members all agree, on opening day, it had the desired effect.

“My brother loved it,” Ms. Labrozzi said. “The first day, we expected some kids might think it was a joke and throw the notes on the ground.”

But nobody did.

And for the record, a lot of those notes are still posted on lockers a full week later.

How’s that for sending a positive message?