May 05, 2026
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Viridian Law.
BAR HARBOR—“When you can’t find kindness, happiness, or hope—be it,” Brielle, a Conners Emerson third grader, told the School Committee Monday, launching a student-led campaign to bring a friendship bench back to the playground.
Members of a third grade class stood in front of the Bar Harbor School Committee, some parents, Meryl Sweeney (their teacher), their principal, and their vice principal and advocated for a bench, a special bench.
The bench wasn’t for themselves, not really; it was for their school community.
“One day this winter, during our Morning Meeting, our class talked about the quote, ‘When you can’t find the sunshine, be the sunshine,’” Brielle told those gathered, voice ringing through the Emerson building’s library. “What it means to us is: when you can’t find kindness, happiness, or hope—be it.”
They were that hope that Monday.
The lower parking lot at the school may have flooded earlier this week. It may be nearing budget time and the school now has to advocate for the town to return approximately $250k that the town council took from the school’s capital improvement lines to pay the budget down a little.
But there are hopeful things, too. A new school is coming. Students are learning, but more than that, they are practicing empathy in real time.
“Lately, there have been a lot of serious and sometimes sad things happening in the world. That has had an impact on us. Being kind, being good friends, and being inclusive are important to us, so we decided to try and make a positive difference here in our school community. We decided to be the sunshine,” Callum told those gathered.
There may be tons of pressures out there in the world, but the students did the research, braved themselves up for a presentation, and advocated for a friendship bench.
“Before the construction, we had a friendship bench by the Conners Castle playground,” Iona explained to the adults. “A group called Kids for Kindness worked with their guidance counselor, Ms. Rosinski, to get the bench back in 2014.”
The last friendship bench had been destroyed when school construction took away the school’s playground during the rebuilding process.
“A friendship bench is a bench that brings people together using kindness. Sitting on a friendship bench lets others know you’d like to play and be included in their games,” Henry explained.
The goal became for them to get that bench—and all it represents—back.
“We set a goal of raising money to buy a friendship bench for Conners Emerson’s new playground. We did some research, and we found a friendship bench we liked online,” Juniper explained.
The problem?
Friendship benches aren’t free.
“It costs $508, so we set a goal of raising money to help pay for one like this,” Juniper said.
“To raise money, we worked in groups to create and sell stickers, magnets, shirts, and hats with positive messages and snazzy artwork,” Nina explained.
Their designs are: “Spread kindness like peanut butter,” “Friendship is like jelly donuts. It’s sweet,” and, “If everyone is part of the puzzle, everyone is happy like cappy.”
“We worked with our groups to write persuasive essays that encouraged people to support our project,” Nina continued.
They sold their products online, using a website called RedBubble.com.
“We also sold stickers at the CES Movie Night at the Criterion. We made a lot of sales, and also got some donations. One CES parent, Andrew Flanagan, even offered to donate slabs if you decide you’d like a friendship bench made of wood!” Rowena said.
“Family and friends have bought our designs. We’ve seen cars driving around town with our stickers on them,” Vander explained. “Most of our sales were local, but people are also walking around with our designs in Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Alabama, Wisconsin, and Texas!”
Brielle said, “You can scan this and it will take us right to our red bubble website.”
“I love your illustrations,” Principal Dr. Heather Weir Webster told them. She’d never seen anything like it.
One of those illustrations was about how spreading kindness like spreading peanut butter. You smear it around and, basically, it tastes amazing, they explained. You just keep wanting more.
“So far, we have raised $592.72! Ms. Susanna helped us deposit this money into a bank account. We hope you will use it when the time comes to buy a friendship bench for our new playground. This will help make our Conners Emerson playground kind, friendly, and inclusive,” Violet said.
One student talked about how one time at recess she’d seen a person sit down on the original friendship bench. The other student hadn’t been playing with anyone. The third grader had been about to head over, but someone else got there first. The friendship bench had worked.
They are pretty sure it will work again.
All photos Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story unless otherwise specified.
RECENT PRESS RELEASES AND BRIEFS
To see all the press releases, click here. To see our news, click here. For the full archive, click here. All of these are on our dedicated website.
We’ve updated our Warrant Committee story so that we now have all candidates. You can read that at the first link below.
The Bar Harbor Warrant Committee Candidates
·
May 3
Discover more from Bar Harbor Story
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.