Nino Zampogna, 9, wanted to spread kindness and friendship. So one day he put up a poster and tried to start a club at his school in Naples.
“A friend threw it in the trash, so he came home really down and said ‘I don’t understand. We need kindness in the world’,” recalled his mother, Danielle.
Nino learned that to start a club, he would need a sponsor and school support, so he set about obtaining those two items. This past year he founded Sea Gate Elementary School’s Friendship Club.
“I am very kind, so I decided to spread my kindness at my school,” Nino said. “We go around and help kids make friends. We make sure they have a place to make friends and make sure they are connected. And we have the Buddy Bench where people can sit, and people come up to them and say, ‘Do you want to play?’ ”
The Friendship Club has a board with three boys and three girls. They meet at lunch to discuss ideas for the group. Club members made an informational video encouraging kids to use the Buddy Bench, and they have helped create “mix up” lunches where kids can sit with students from other classrooms.
“A mix-up lunch is where you get to sit wherever you want. It helps people make new friends and [meet] people they never met,” Nino explained.
The group sold scented pencils and donated the money raised to Laces of Love, a local nonprofit that donates shoes to children in need. On Earth Day club members cleaned the playground. They also made cards for a student that was in the hospital.
“We did chalk messages for fifth grade testing,” Nino described. “We wrote kind messages to encourage [students]. We hid kind messages in books in the library. I worked with the librarian to find out the most popular books in the library.”
“I am so proud of Nino,” Danielle said. “He is such a leader. He is so kind, so personable, so outgoing. He never gave up on the Friendship Club. Usually kids lose attention, but he always goes to the board meetings.”
Katie Carney, Sea Gate’s guidance counselor, sponsors the club. She said when Nino first approached her about starting the group, she knew it would work.
“I have watched him flourish,” she said. “He always has the kindest heart, and [for him] to start something schoolwide, it really makes me smile.”
Nino has even more plans for the coming school year. He wants to create an ambassadors group to welcome new students to Sea Gate. He also wants to see Friendship Clubs start in other schools.
“I was thinking we could make this countywide, and we could have a club in each school,” Nino said.
Nino even has a succession plan in place for the Sea Gate club. “I am going to give it to my brother,” Nino said. “We are three years apart.”
When Nino is not spreading his kindness, he likes to play soccer and baseball. He also likes going to Revs Institute in Naples to see the antique cars. “I am a car fanatic,” he stressed.
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