Founder of online positivity initiative returns to alma mater to educate current students about digital safety
BRENTWOOD, California – Former Bristow Middle School student Alexa Negrete was in the seventh grade when she started a project to spread positivity on campus. Now a Social Impact Manager at the nonprofit #ICANHELP, Negrete will be speaking to students and staff about digital safety alongside #ICANHELP’s Executive Director on January 24, 2023.
“One of our most inspirational students from Bristow is coming back to spread the message of kindness and compassion,” commented teacher Gina Terry, who taught Negrete while the latter was a student at Bristow. “We are so excited to have her back and can’t wait to see the ripple effect her positivity has on our campus!”
The presentation will highlight how students and adults can maintain a positive digital footprint and become “Digital First Responders”: people who are prepared to handle cyberbullying, harassment, and other forms of online abuse as soon as they arise.
“We don’t usually think of it, but just like the way negativity can spread, people can be swayed or encouraged when the majority are doing ‘good’ online. Students just need to be shown how to respond to the negativity. We need to empower our future generation to take action against all the issues that are arising with technology,” explains Kim Karr, Co-Founder and Executive Director of #ICANHELP. “Through #ICANHELP, students are learning that kindness is saving lives and it doesn’t have to be anything big — a simple smile or a nice Post-it note on a locker might be all it takes.”
Negrete’s social media project, Bristow Compliments, is a prime example of how seemingly small acts of kindness can create a lasting impact. In 2015, Negrete created the Instagram page with fellow student Allison Kim as they aimed to improve campus culture at Bristow. Every student who sent a photo of themselves to the page’s moderators received a compliment. Students could “nominate” their friends to receive a positive message as well.
Negrete and Kim’s project was spotlighted at #ICANHELP’s annual Digital4Good Summit in 2017, inspiring over 150 students to create similar “compliment pages” for their own schools. The original page, Bristow Compliments, is still active today and can be found on Instagram at @bristowcompliments.
As Negrete’s story shows, students are the core of the solution to online toxicity, and their help is crucial in today’s digital world. According to Karr, “#ICANHELP has worked with over four hundred and seventy thousand students to be the digital change they want to see.”
The nonprofit’s student-led approach to solving complicated social issues presents students as part of the solution, not the problem. It aims to raise awareness, offer real-world best practices, and celebrate the many examples of students using digital for good.
