Ocean City Intermediate School in Ocean City, New Jersey, enrolls 325 students in grades four through eight and has been working on building a kindness culture for seven years. Kindness Champion Kara Uhrich helped students give that culture fresh language and new direction.

The school’s shared definition is specific about when kindness counts most: “Kindness means treating everyone with respect, including others, and helping or encouraging people, especially when no one is watching, so that everyone feels valued and that they belong.”

Uhrich has focused especially on the younger grades, helping fourth and fifth graders build a strong foundation for how they respond to one another. Students are learning that kindness starts with how they treat themselves and carries into how they handle unkindness from others. Those are the skills that support the friendships they are building now and the habits they will take into the upper grades.

Student leadership is a visible part of how kindness shows up at Ocean City. Through the Santa Paws drive, student council members planned, advertised, collected, organized, and delivered donations for a local humane society, gathering more than 500 items. Students led the project from start to finish, deciding what to collect, rallying classmates, and handling the logistics of delivery.

Kindness also shows up in how students and families experience the school. Principal Matthew Engle is known for taking time with students, asking questions and helping them think through how to make better choices. That tone carries into classrooms, hallways, and the front office.

The Kind School recognition is a natural reflection of what students and staff have been building together for years. At Ocean City Intermediate School, kindness lives in the way students define it, practice it, and make room for one another, especially when no one is watching.