Kindness doesn’t always involve volunteering or fundraising or leadership. Sometimes, it is just the simple act of reaching out to another. Five-year-old Edson Cuevas Limon, a kindergarten student at Palmetto Elementary School in Collier County, did just that, and helped a young girl overcome her fears and finally settle into school.
It all started at the beginning of the school year when Collet Alvarez arrived at school crying. It’s not unusual for some kindergarten students to cry a bit at the beginning of the school year, but Collet’s case was extreme. She didn’t cry for just a few minutes or even an hour, she cried most of the first day, and every day that followed. Collet had never been away from her parents and she wanted to go home. She also didn’t speak English, so being thrust into a big school filled with strangers speaking a different language was too much for the 5-year-old-girl.
Most kids would steer away from a crying, screaming child, but not Edson.
“I was talking with her and told her how she could be calm,” Edson said in Spanish. “I said ‘Don’t cry. We are going home to our moms and dads. School is only for a little bit of time.’ I held her hand so she would be more calm.”
Edson and Collet met on the school bus, but were in different kindergarten classrooms. Collet was calm when she was with Edson, but her tears would return once they were separated.
School staff tried without success to comfort the little girl. “We were just at our wits’ end,” said kindergarten teacher Mandy Bontrager. “I would see her around school and she would be crying. Being a new mom, I would pick her up and walk her around. A lot of times you are supposed to ignore the behavior, but I couldn’t. I asked her if she wanted to come with me every time I saw her crying. Coming in here with no language, I just connected with her.”
Nothing seemed to help; Collet kept crying.
Success at last
Finally, PES’s principal decided to ask Collet which classroom she would like to be in. She chose Bontrager’s. “At first, my eyes were glimmering because I felt so honored because Collet picked me,” the teacher said. “Nope. She chose my classroom because of her bus mate, Edson.”
The new setting was a success.
“Collet sat next to Edson and the first thing he did was give her the biggest hug that his little arms could provide,” Bontrager said. “He explained our class rules in their native language, told her where to put her backpack, and modeled to her what a kindergartener looks like.”
“The first day that I came to this room I gave him a hug and then I was fine with that,” Collet said in Spanish.
“She asked ‘Do you want to be my friend?’ and I said ‘Yes, I want to be your friend’,” Edson said. “She is good and she is lovely and she is a good friend.”
Best friends
Bontrager said Collet quickly adjusted to kindergarten once she had Edson at her side. Now sometimes she returns the favor by helping Edson stay calm and remember the kindergarten rules. The two friends enjoy working on math problems and computer lessons together, but their favorite thing is the brain breaks when they get to dance on the carpet together.
“They will sit at lunch with each other and hold each other’s hand,” said Alejandra Basso, a school aide.
Bontrager says there are several reasons why the two connected.
“I think it is because he always has a smile on his face,” she said. “He is just a warm kid. You see him and all you want to do is smile. If you are sad, he senses people’s emotions. He knows when to be what. He can be the jokester, or he can be comforting. If he sees somebody is sad, he just gives them a hug.”
Edson has a different idea of why he is so kind.
“Because that way I can have more friends,” he concluded.