Olivia Mccleary sits down with reporter to talk about her group, Random Acts of Kindness.
By: Ally cole
With me throughout this interview is a working hard leader, citizen and student. Olivia Mccleary is the captain for the UAHS (Upper Arlington High school) group, Random Acts of Kindness. Before moving to Upper Arlington with the rest of her family, she lived in Jacksonville, Florida. At her old school is where she actually originally formed the group, but after she moved she decided to carry on with the meaning and built the group back up here at the High School. During this interview she will be sharing the basic view points of her group and what it’s all about. Stay tuned for an easy way to get your community points for the year.
Q: Olivia, what exactly is the group random acts of kindness?
Olivia: Well, it’s an organization that I got going here but actually started in Jacksonville, Florida. It’s basically where we go throughout the year, we volunteer a lot because we’re very much for the spirit on volunteerism. We raise things through bake sales, like now, and through thinks like activities throughout the year.
Q: What kind of activities?
Olivia: Like there’s is car washes, there were dances that we put on in Jacksonville at my old school, and there are all kind of different interactive things. At the end of the year we give all the money we have raised to a charity that we all vote on. In Jacksonville we decided the Jackson humane Society because their site burned down, so we decided they needed help for them to rebuild.
Q: Why exactly did you decide to form the group in general?
Olivia: Well really…[pauses], I’m kind of old fashioned this way, so I really enjoy helping people that defiantly needed it that don’t have everything, like people who work at the humane society, they are paid very low anyway, but they do it because they love it and I feel that they disserve help.
Q: What type of things do you do as random acts of kindness?
Olivia: Well basically we have different kinds of events. Like we’ve had dances before, different activities, like we’ll do car washes, volunteer work, like at the Columbus zoo, and we’ll have marathons. We also get sponsors and we just raise money the whole entire year.
Q: Do people who join the group benefit from anything?
Olivia: Yes, mostly. It’s just feeling good because you helped somebody, but actually stable members are in the group not for service, but they are their to help and have fun while it. We do offer community service though and things like that to people who volunteer for different events.
Q: So people can basically join, get their service hours and then quite?
Olivia: Yea, that’s why we have base members that are there to help, their standing members. A lot of people will be like, “Hey there’s an opportunity to get community service”.
Q: Is there anything that you guys are currently working on?
Olivia: Well right now, we are trying to but on a dance, but it’s kind of hard to do it at the school. Our group is also trying to organize an event, which will be sort of like the tailgate party the link grew is playing before the homecoming game.
Ally Cole: Well, those are all the questions I have for you. Thank you for taking your time to sit down with me and talk a little about Random acts of kindness.
Olivia: Your welcome!