'Oprah' talk show sparks Nashville Catholic students to help others

Published: 2007-03-06

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (CNS) -- Oprah Winfrey recently gave each member of her television talk show audience $1,000, a digital video camera and a mission to use the money to help others. The project has had ripple effect that has reached Nashville. Meghann Robinson, a sixth-grade teacher at St. Ann School in Nashville, was in Cincinnati over the Christmas holidays when she read a newspaper article about a teacher at a Cincinnati Catholic school who, inspired by Winfrey, gave each of her students $10 with the same mission the TV talk-show star gave her audience. Robinson decided to use her $250 Christmas bonus check to finance a similar project for her 25 students. She called it the Kindness Challenge. Robinson unveiled the Kindness Challenge by giving each student $10. They had three weeks to use the money for an act of kindness, but they could not help their friends, their family or themselves. "They just started running with it," Robinson said. "You could see how excited about it they were." Some students worked by themselves, others pooled their money and their efforts with classmates.

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