When 7-year-old Kendall Stowers’ father died just before Christmas, she found a way to think of others and make them feel better.
Kendall, a second-grader at Ida B. Wells Elementary School in East Nashville, soon started making bracelets out of small rubber bands for friends who had also lost their fathers. She also made one for her teacher, Katie Liggett, and brought it to class after the holiday break.
“It made me a little teary,” recalled Liggett, a veteran teacher whose own father passed away about 20 years ago. “She didn’t realize how special it was.”
Since then, Kendall’s bracelet-making operation, using a kit she received as a Christmas present, has taken off. Several of her classmates now help her take and deliver orders from other students and staff members every day during recess, and her bracelets are available in Ida B. Wells’ Warrior Buck Store, where students can purchase them with Warrior Bucks earned for demonstrating positive schoolwide behavior.
She’s hoping to turn Kendall’s Special Bracelets into a real business at some point, offering bracelets in any combination of colors. (Pink is very popular, Kendall reports.)
“In a time that is often full of darkness, this young lady brings light to those around her,” MNPS Director of Schools Dr. Adrienne Battle, who met Kendall during a visit to Ida B. Wells earlier this year and ordered a bracelet from her, said while recognizing her at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting. “In a time of violence, she brings kindness. Tonight we are honoring Kendall for being a model of kindness, compassion and friendship.”
Kendall is a soft-spoken girl with a big smile. She enjoys working with her friends and says she can see “dark times getting brighter” when she helps others by making a bracelet.