Nagamine promotes positivity through A4E

Photo by Riann Fujihara

Allies for Equality president Sherri Nagamine hands a compliment to senior Kennedy-Kainoa Tamashiro. Nagamine and A4E honored National Compliment Day by handing out compliments to students in the dining hall, Jan. 24.

Allies for Equality’s president Sherri Nagamine coordinated a day to shower positivity on the student body as part of National Compliment Day, Jan. 24, in Keʻeaumokupāpaʻiaheahe dining hall.

The day is one of an estimated 1,500 national days in the U. S. National Compliment Day was created by two women named Kathy Chamberlin and Debby Hoffman in 1998.

“I thought our school could use a little more positivity, and that’s what our club [A4E] is about – spreading positivity and being friends with everybody,” Nagamine said.

The A4E club members wrote all the compliments and hung posters around campus. The compliments were written on pieces of paper, and students could get one by going to a table staffed by club members. After getting a compliment, students could also write a compliment to give to someone else.

Originally, the club planned to walk around with mason jars filled with compliments to pass out; however, they went with club activities coordinator Stephanie Bodin’s suggestion of having members of each grade pass out compliments to their own classes while they were eating their lunch.

The club’s mission is to create unity and equality despite gender or sexual orientation. Even though they have an overall goal, member has their own reasons for joining.

“I am not lesbian, gay, bisexual, but I do believe in their rights and equality for all, so I just joined it because I felt the same way that they did about those kinds of opinions,” Bodin said.

The club said that they are planning more activities. Watch out for Allies for Equality on Valentine’s day where they plan to pass out candy and give more compliments.