“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”

Jana Maher lives by those words. Now she’s sharing them with kids in her new Kindness Club.

Jana is better known as Miss Sparkles, story time leader for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers at the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library.

“I’ve been doing a kids’ club for many years and I was ready to change it up,” explains Jana. “I was thinking about how important it is to be nice and to spread kindness. I wanted a club where we focus more on spreading kindness. We read stories about kids who are empathetic to other people and then we make something and give it to someone who isn’t expecting it.”

Jana’s Kindness Club meets weekly, for six weeks. Club members have made leashes for the Central Dakota Humane Society and painted plates for residents at Missouri Slope Lutheran Care Center in Bismarck. So far, the feedback has been better than Jana dreamed.

“I wasn’t sure if the idea would take,” she says. “I had room for 25 kids in the club. I had 27 sign up! I felt so bad I had to turn people away.”

Jana is already planning another session of Kindness Club. It will be open to kids in kindergarten through fourth grade from schools throughout Bismarck, both public and private.

“I’m feeling really inspired by these kids. My hope is they go back to their schools and tell their friends and their teachers what they did and how they spread kindness.”

To learn more, visit the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Library website, find Miss Sparkles on Facebook, or check out the Bismarck Public School’s Friday Flier. Kindness Club, like all things at the library, is free.