Students from Codman Academy Charter School marched to the nearby Codman Square post office last Friday to mail hand-written postcards and letters to President Donald J. Trump about kindness and inclusion.

The letter-writing campaign started after staff, families and students were upset, angered and saddened by the alleged derogatory comments made by President Trump about people in Haiti and Africa this month.

“In a staff meeting, we discussed ways to respond positively and spread messages of love, kindness and inclusion throughout our country. We thought the first place to start would be in the most iconic places we have, the White House,” said Pamela Casna, K1-8 principal at Codman Academy. “We shared our plans with families, invited them to join and then gave the students the time and space to write messages to President Trump.”

K1-4 students worked on postcards and grades 5-8 wrote their own letters and offered support to the younger students. The students mailed 125 postcards and letters that expressed and addressed the importance of kindness, respect and love for others, according to Casna.

“We are a social justice school and we will work hard to build our students up. We will work even harder to do so when we hear or see things that are trying to tear them down. Whether the words were true or not, they were echoed throughout our news stations, households and public spaces,” said Casna. “The damage of hearing messages of hate about all that makes you you can only be voided with consistent, loud and clear messages of love about all that makes you, you. We will continue to provide those messages to our students, our community and our leaders.”