Sandy Hook Elementary School teacher Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis \u201905 (ED), \u201906 MA always felt that teaching kindness was a critical lesson for her young students\u00a0\u2013 perhaps no more so than in the wake of the tragic shooting in Newtown, Conn., that took the lives of six of her colleagues and 20 Sandy Hook students last December.<\/p>\n
As countless gifts and messages of compassion poured into the school and uplifted her first-graders in the months that followed, the UConn alum sought a way to teach her students how to pay that kindness forward. \u201cEventually I just realized that when you get, you have to give,\u201d Roig-DeBellis says.<\/p>\n
Launching a nonprofit called Classes 4 Classes earlier this year, Roig-DeBellis has made the act of giving an engaging, tangible experience in her own classroom, as well as in many other classrooms nationwide. The organization, whose mission is to teach every child in America to have an interest in the well-being of others, invites K-5 teachers and their students to become sponsors for other K-5 classrooms elsewhere in the country\u00a0\u2013 for instance, by helping to raise funds for the purchase of much-needed school supplies, a field trip, or a guest speaker for a classroom in need.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so important, especially for younger students, to have a genuine experience in learning to be caring, kind, compassionate, empathetic,\u201d Roig-DeBellis says. \u201cAs teachers, we\u2019re so busy with curriculum and all the major subject areas\u00a0\u2013 which are so important\u00a0\u2013 but there is still such a gap in how kids treat one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Classes 4 Classes begins to address that gap, offering students the opportunity to experience firsthand the joy of giving, while involving the larger community.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people say, \u2018I\u2019m not a teacher or parent,\u2019 or \u2018I have no involvement with schools,\u2019\u201d says Roig-DeBellis. \u201cBut this program is also about the people who are helping to make it happen\u00a0\u2013 whether it\u2019s monetarily or by spreading the word. Every person can be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
To learn more, donate, or find ways to get involved, visit classes4classes.org<\/a>. To contribute to UConn\u2019s Sandy Hook Memorial Scholarship Fund, visit s.uconn.edu\/sandyhook<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n This article was first published in the Fall 2013 edition of\u00a0<\/em>UConn Magazine. To see more videos and stories like these,\u00a0download\u00a0<\/a><\/em>UConn Magazine‘s<\/em><\/a>\u00a0free interactive app<\/a>\u00a0for tablet devices.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sandy Hook Elementary School teacher Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis \u201905 (ED), \u201906 MA is teaching her students to pay kindness forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":86302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,1855,70],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[49],"class_list":["post-86160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-neag","category-video"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 03:17:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86160"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193374,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86160\/revisions\/193374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/86302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86160"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=86160"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=86160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}