Compassionate Communities Awards

LivingKind’s Compassionate Communities promotes a school culture of just action, respect for the inherent value of all living beings, and reverence for our shared natural world.

Inspiring Respect, Empathy, & Social Action

  • Compassionate Communities is a free, school-based program that helps students develop empathy, leadership, and social-emotional skills by exploring real-world issues and leading meaningful service projects that benefit people, animals, and the environment. Through classroom lessons, active civic engagement, collaborative problem-solving, and student-led action, schools build a culture of compassion while strengthening connections between learning and community impact.

  • In 2017, LivingKind launched Compassionate Communities in partnership with the NYC Mayor’s Office and Department of Education. During the 2017-18 school year, more than 14,000 students from 21 elementary schools in Bronx District 8 participated, and developed a range of community service projects that inspired respect, empathy, and social action. In the Spring term of 2019, we successfully expanded the Compassionate Communities Award program to Long Island's Nassau County, engaging 6,000 students at 11 elementary schools.  During the 2019-2020 school year,  in partnership with the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office, the program was implemented at fifteen Brooklyn elementary schools in Districts 15 and 16, collectively serving approximately 10,000 students. In the 2021-22 school year, we introduced the program in Queens elementary school District 30 in partnership with the Queens Borough President’s Office, reaching 4,000+ students.  We piloted the program in Chicago in partnership with the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition during the 2022-23 school year, reaching 1,500+ students.  

    Each participating school is asked to develop and implement lessons, activities, and service projects within their school community that reflect upon  meaningful connections between the lived experience of their students, the needs of the people in their neighborhoods, and those of all the living beings we share the world with.


  • Apply here!

    The Compassionate Communities Food Justice for All program provides cash grants of up to $1,000 to support participating schools in achieving their food justice goals by bringing teaching tools, topical resources, and on-going staff consultation to K-12 schools, partnering with them in developing impactful student-led service actions that address issues of food equity, advance local food sovereignty, and support the critical transformation of our food systems towards a humane and agroecological model both locally and globally.

    As of Fall 2023, Compassionate Communities has expanded from a single year, contest and school district-based program to one that is city-wide, and is now designed to provide on-going engagement and financial support in partnership with participating schools over time. Food Justice issues profoundly impact both our local communities right now, and our global future on the planet, and so we have added a focused Food Justice topic as an option to our Compassionate Communities program, with the goal of fostering youth leadership in building towards more equitable, resilient, and humane food systems. To date our Food Justice for All program has served thousands of students in schools across the city, with more joining us every year. 

    LivingKind has been selected by the NYC Department of Education in conjunction with the Food Education Roadmap as one of the approved providers of food education services in NYCFood Education Service  Providers .

    For more information please contact Jeannie Russell at jeannie@living-kind.org


  • We structured our program around the concept of community because we believe that life-long compassionate engagement can be most powerfully awakened in individual students when it is expressed in all aspects of the community that guides and sustains them.

    A global pandemic and increasing climate threats teach us that we are truly one world. What that world will look like as we move past the current crises and confront the challenges that we know are ahead, will depend on the courage, vision, and principles that guide our youth, as they will inherit the job. The Compassionate Communities program was created out of our deep commitment to furthering this mission, by encouraging students to exercise their capacity for positive agency and self-expression, and ability to make reparative connections with the people, animals, and natural spaces of their community by taking action on their behalf.

Compassionate Communities in Action

  • Three young girls in a classroom holding a yellow poster about food justice, with colorful drawings and handwritten text.

  • A young boy peering through a shelf of green leafy vegetables, smiling and looking at the camera.

  • Group of children outdoors in front of fence displaying colorful artwork and a sign that says "Thank You The Art." They are posing with hands forming hearts, smiling, and standing on grass on a sunny day.

  • A white display board with the words 'Our Gardening' spelled out in large, colorful flower letters, featuring various photos of children and adults engaging in gardening activities, decorated with cartoon images of a watering can and flowers, set up at a community event inside a school or community center.

  • Three children planting and tending to plants in a garden in an urban area.

  • Three boys inside a classroom holding homemade volcano science projects made from plastic bottles, paper mache, and other materials, with one boy wearing a shirt that says 'Excel Charter School Upper Campus' and another wearing a shirt that says 'Evil C'.

  • Group of children and adults in a classroom holding jars filled with oats, during a baking or cooking activity.

  • Group of young children on a field trip observing a hydroponic or indoor plant growing setup with multiple large leafy green plants under grow lights.

  • Two children, a girl and a boy, standing next to a potted tree outdoors, smiling at the camera. The girl is wearing a red jacket with a hood, and the boy is wearing glasses and a black jacket with red accents. The background includes brick buildings, windows, and steps.

  • Group of children and an adult wearing hairnets and gloves, preparing food in a classroom. They are mixing ingredients in bowls and cutting vegetables, engaged in a cooking activity.

  • A young woman standing in front of a whiteboard giving a presentation, with slides projected behind her and some handwritten numbers on the whiteboard.

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