Preston Matthews
Preston is nine years old. He is in the third grade and is the oldest of four siblings. He loves technology as well as playing with friends outside.
“Please stop poking me!!!” screamed Mason’s little brother, Max. But Mason ignored him and continued to laugh at Max and poke him. But a few seconds later Mason’s mom came home, barely walking through the door when Max sprinted to her, crying and telling her about how his brother was rudely poking him and wouldn’t stop.
Mason’s mom, who was already tired from work, scolded Mason for being mean to his brother and not stopping even when Max asked him nicely. A bad deed like this left Mason’s mom no choice but to send him to the dreaded time out corner. Mason tried his best to get out of it. He tried apologizing, crying, and running upstairs, but nothing worked. In a few minutes, Mason found himself sitting in the timeout corner, which was a corner in the garage with nothing but a chair.
After about ten minutes, Mason’s mom let him back in. Mason promised not to poke Max for fun anymore, and that he will stop being mean to Max the minute he says stop. Mason’s mom explained to Mason that it’s important to respect the feelings of your family, and that if you cross the boundaries and rules that the family has set, then there will always be a consequence for it. Mason nodded his head in agreement, and ran off to the backyard with Max and started playing basketball with him. Mason finally realized that he needed to respect family boundaries.
Pankhuri Singhal
Pankhuri is 14 years old and likes to write, listen to music and sing. She is a violinist and plays in her school’s orchestra. She is in her chess club as well, and helps the other players meet their standards. Her favorite book genre is fantasy.
“Ok, class, I have to talk to you,” said Mr. Spark. The class looked up as one. “Tomorrow…there shall—” He was cut off by an unexpected BEEP! from the loudspeaker, and the principal spoke.
“Good afternoon, kids. Today I have a special announcement to make. Tomorrow we are not going to follow one school boundary called ‘no bullying’—”
“WHAT?!” the class whispered loudly.
“—and this is just an experiment to see how well you behave when there is no ‘no bullying’. Thank you for your time.” The loudspeaker clicked off. Immediately, the class started buzzing excitedly, with many students worrying as well. So Chloe went up and asked Mr. Spark.
“Sir, does it mean that when someone is bullying someone in class, you’re not going to stop that person?” asked Chloe.
“I guess we shall find out tomorrow. After all, it’s only for a day.” replied Mr. Spark.
“Right. It’s like we’re the citizens of Massachusetts and we won’t ratify the Constitution, although this is temporary.” Chloe exclaimed.
Mr. Spark smiled, appreciating her knowledge of the US before it became, well, the US. Chloe went back to her seat, wondering why the principal had asked them to see how well this ‘rule’ would work. Did she actually want half the kids with bruises and bumps by the end of the day tomorrow?
The morning came, and kids suddenly turned from behaved students to bullies. Kids were being tormented even before school started, and it went something like this: a few of them teamed up on one poor kid. Ten seconds later…another gang had beaten up the people who were bullying the person before. And so on and so forth, a chain reaction happened. Everyone in school was bullied by everyone. Ouch. As soon as Chloe walked into the building, someone punched her arm—hard. As Chloe furiously rubbed the spot, Chloe thought, this is the experiment. Chloe was being jostled and shoved as much as others. Chloe didn’t like it at all. That is when Chloe woke up and realized it was nothing but a dream.
Even in the dream, this was for one day, and one boundary, one rule was broken, and everyone, the kids, big and small, the staff, the principal, was not happy. Think about life, and how different it would be without these helpful rules and boundaries.
Thomas and Johnathan Szudzik
Johnathon’s interests include basketball, drawing and gaming. He has lived in Washington his entire life. Thomas likes to play piano, Minecraft, and take his dog for walks. During these walks he picks up any litter he finds to keep his community clean.
He said he’d be here ten minutes ago! I don’t want to be late! Leo thought, wondering where his best friend, Percy, was. After what seemed like forever, Leo heard the heavy knocking of wood followed by three rings of the doorbell. Finally! Leo walked out of his front door wearing his garden gloves, old clothes and dirty sneakers. He was greeted by Percy, wearing a similar outfit. Where were they headed dressed like that? They were headed to a neighborhood gathering to clean up the park across the street, to celebrate Earth Day.
As Percy and Leo got there, they saw all their neighbors had already started to pick weeds, pick up trash, pull trash out of the lake, and clean the park equipment. Percy’s next door neighbor, Leslie, walked over to Leo and Percy, handing them two buckets and nets.
“Hi! Our job is to take out any trash from the water.” She said. As they headed to the lake, Percy couldn’t help but say, “This is amazing! Even the little kids are helping out!” Leslie and Leo agreed, and they started picking out gum wrappers, lollipop sticks, and water bottles from the lake water. Within a few hours, the park looked good as new, and one of the little kids said “Can we do this every year!” It had been such a success that people were more than happy to do it again soon. And so, every year, all the people, kids, and adults, living in that neighborhood would come to clean the park as an Earth Day tradition.
You see, it’s not always easy for one person to make a huge difference in their community; it takes a village to create an impact. If everyone comes together, they can get a huge job done, and in the process they shape today’s youth in a positive way.
Chirag Vedullapalli, Rohini Mettu, and Catalina Raggi
Chirag, Rohini, and Cata are the lead organizers of 40 Stories. The three met at their Toastmasters club and bonded over their passion for youth empowerment and leadership. Chirag is 13 and is a devoted artist. Rohini is 14 and loves to snowboard, paint, and write. Cat is 16 and likes poetry and encouraging environmentally friendly practices.
Every year, the kids of Evercrest High School had a race. Despite being optional, everyone was encouraged to participate, and most kids looked forward to running it. At the end of the finish line, over 3 miles away, the principal stood, holding a lit golden cup.
Out of all of the kids in the school, there was one that was particularly looking forward to the race. Jin Tang was determined that he would be the one to win this year. He wasn’t a particularly good runner, but he was certainly spirited, and he was confident that he would win the trophy. Jin trained hard every day to prepare himself for the race. He ran 3 miles a day to make sure he was ready to win. Jim got his inspiration to train so hard, from his elderly neighbor, Mr. Goldman.
Jin met Mr. Goldman when he was playing around the neighborhood a few months ago. With his gnarled cane, Mr. Goldman would spend hours at a time telling Jin stories of his time as a runner when he was Jin’s age. As Mr. Goldman and Jin grew closer, Jin wanted to become like Mr. Goldman more and more, and saw running as a way to be closer to him.
When the day of the race finally came, the starting bell rang, and Jin took off along with all of the other runners. Mr. Goldman’s inspiring stories flashed through Jin’s mind, as he pushed on towards the finish line of the race. Before he knew it, Jin was in first place, and quickly approaching the finish line. Mr. Goldman’s old, wrinkled face was beaming with pride, as he cheered Jin on. Jin forced his way through his exhaustion, and ran straight through until the end, taking the flaming cup from his principal’s hand.
During his victory speech, Jin made sure to thank Mr. Goldman for all of his encouragement and inspiration as he trained. He knew that Mr. Goldman had been a positive role model for him, and helped him achieve this victory, while making him a better person.
Andrea Zamora
Andrea is nine years old and is in fourth grade. She loves painting, and wants to be a doctor when she is older.
“Okay class, ten minutes until school ends!” Mrs. Ross called. Everyone got up and ran to their backpacks and lined up at the door, leaving the classroom in a huge mess. Papers were everywhere, chairs had fallen over, and pencils lay on the ground. “Kids, can you help me clean up the classroom?” But everyone just ignored Mrs. Ross’s voice, excited for summer break to start.
Mrs. Ross kneeled down and began to clean the cluttered classroom. She mumbled complaints about how she was getting late for her flight in the evening. “Mrs. Ross, can we help you with the mess?” said Elisa, Cayla, and Anna.
“Oh yes! Thank you for stepping up and helping me clean up.” As Elisa, and Cayla picked up the last papers, Mrs. Ross and Anna put the tables and chairs back in place.
“Thank you for the help girls,” said Mrs. Ross. “I hope you three have a great influence on your classmates. Have a great summer.”
RIINGGG!!! That was the bell, announcing the end of the school day. “Class, before you leave, please give a round of applause to Cayla, Anna, and Elisa for cleaning up the room,” CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! “Goodbye, have a great summer!” But everyone was in action. Everyone began to clean the room!
Mrs. Ross was very happy that these three girls could make such a positive influence on the class of thirty-five. Three kids picking up papers from the ground could lead to thirty-five kids arranging desks, wiping the whiteboard, and arranging the classroom library.
The class realized they all had the power to step up and help others, and in the process, inspire their fellow peers.
Sydney Otto
Sydney is a freshman. She loves nature and the environment, so she tries to help clean it upon beaches, parks, and roads as much as she can. She especially loves the beach and the water. Her family and she boat and swim a lot, and love to skimboard. The ocean is especially important to her so keep it clean.
Jackie, a 15-year-old freshman, has been awaiting August 10th, because that was the day she would bike in a race for 50 miles. She expected herself to finish the race. With the race happening in the next 24 hours she couldn’t wait, it was so hard to get to sleep because she had so much excitement. Eventually, she fell asleep at 1 a.m. in the morning. When she woke up the next day, she was mentally prepared for the marathon, but physically was tired. She realized that by going to sleep at 1 a.m., her body couldn’t get enough rest, so she decided to get her adrenaline pumping by going on a quick jog. Ten minutes later, she got back home and she felt so much better than when she had left for the jog.
Jackie’s dad, Brad, made an awesome breakfast of sunny side up eggs. Jackie got dressed and couldn’t wait to get to the starting point of the event. While they were driving, Brad said to Jackie, “If you are tired, exhale, inhale, exhale, and just keep moving forward no matter how steep the slope is.” After hearing this, Jackie had no idea what he was talking about, but before she could put more thought into it, they had arrived at the location of where the event started.
Jackie signed in and arrived at the starting line. In a matter of minutes, the race official fired the gun, and everyone started biking. After biking for 45 miles on mostly flat roads with little hills, finally she had arrived at the last obstacle, Sunset Hill. She could see that the hill would be extremely tough and at the top she saw a little red flag waving vigorously from the wind. She was almost done. As she biked up the hill, she felt her bike going slower, and her legs getting heavier.
Jackie’s adrenaline was running out, she was getting tired, she hadn’t even gotten the appropriate amount of sleep that night. It took her 30 minutes to bike just 3 miles up the hill, after that she started realizing why the flag was waving so vigorously. It was because the wind was so strong, and sadly it was blowing against her, and this was slowing her down. Just then she remembered what her dad said “If you are tired, exhale, inhale, exhale, and just keep moving forward no matter how steep the slope is.”
So Jackie took a few deep breaths and biked at full speed for the last mile. In the last 200 feet, she could see and hear a lot of people applauding for her. She sped to the finish line, and when she biked through the finish line she was informed that she was the fastest in her age category. She realized that setting high expectations actually helped her on her overall performance. Even when the odds are against you, setting a high expectation can help you perform better.