Wednesday, Nov. 30, the students of Elizabethtown College gathered as a group and acknowledged the campus’s first ever Day of Positivity. The event was put together and sponsored by the Class of 2020 Student Senate to celebrate diversity on campus and spread positivity among students over the unease of the recent Presidential election, as well as the looming threat of final exams.

With the end of the Fall 2016 semester quickly approaching, students are growing restless and eager to depart to their homes for the holiday season. However, with all the negativity clouding the media and the stress of last minute assignments and tests getting in the way of holiday cheer, keeping a positive outlook on life can be a challenge.

As a result, the Class of 2020 got together and decided to host the Day of Positivity as its first unity event this year.

The event lasted the entirety of the day, from 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. During this 12-hour time frame, students had the opportunity to visit the Blue Bean Café in the BSC, where a table was set up with different colored markers and sticky notes.

The job was simple: write as many positive messages on sticky notes as they wanted and post them in various places around campus. Any student could write whatever message their heart desired, as long as the message was positive in nature.

By the end of the day, buildings across campus were filled with colorful, positive sticky notes. They could be found on the walls in the BSC, on bathroom mirrors, on doors and scattered about in the dorms. Brinser Residence Hall, for example, featured a sticky note with an inspiring message on each door. Overall, between 2,000 and 3,000 positive notes were posted.

Messages, such as “Love yourself, always,” “Turn that frown upside down,” “You will ace finals!” and many more riddled the walls of campus buildings after the Day of Positivity’s end, ensuring that all the students could see the overwhelming positivity that the others were sending their way.

First-year class president Rachel Craft made this event possible with the help of the rest of the Class of 2020 senators, including fellow first-year Dylan Warner. Warner is the student who originally came up with the idea of posting uplifting sticky notes around campus for the Day of Positivity.

His inspiration arose from a sticky note he received on his door from a friend he had told once this year about his rough day.

The note read, “With the rising of the sun comes a new day with new possibilities. Things will get better. I promise.”

The simple yet kind gesture greatly improved his mood and outlook on the rest of the day, and it was this combined with Schlosser Residence Hall’s second negative whiteboard incident that gave him the idea to turn a small-scale spread of positivity into a big one.

He said that the Class of 2020 began working on bringing the event to life back in October and called the day a “huge success” thanks to all the students who participated in writing notes to spread a little love.

“I think it is easy to lose sight of the positive things in life when you’re studying for finals, and it feels like the entire world is going to fall apart if you don’t do well on your exams,” Warner said regarding the importance of keeping a positive outlook in the College’s atmosphere.

However, he also noted that often times it is the little moments that have the ability to brighten people’s days the most and make their week just a little bit better.

“I really hope that’s what we were able to accomplish with this event,” he said.

Etown hosts many different events throughout the school year to help students maintain healthy social lives and feel included.

By setting the Day of Positivity in motion, the Class of 2020 strives for the goal of bringing everyone together and making them feel like a part of a community in which people care about them and want them to succeed.

These last few weeks can be daunting for some students, but spreading a little positivity through this event proved to make all the difference in increasing confidence for many members of the campus community.