Lloydminster teen’s school project shows power of kindness

One Lloydminster high school student’s school project is showing the positive effect that kind words can have on people.

Olivia Brockhoff, 16, filmed the reaction of peers and staff at her school being told they are beautiful. She said the idea came from a viral YouTube video from a few years ago.

Throughout the video, Brockhoff tells her subjects the project she’s working on involves taking pictures of people she thought were beautiful. That leads to smiles, laughter, blushing and a few tears throughout the short video.

The teen never expected her project for her communications media class would be shared and viewed over 10,000 times.

“It made more of an impact than I thought it would,” she said.

“I didn’t expect any news organizations to even see my video, so having different ones reach out to me is insane.”

Brockhoff said she is “insanely proud” of her video and that she was so excited to get it done that she spent hours after school editing it.

She said her intended message is that a “compliment can go a long way” because you never know what someone is going through.

“I want people to know they are enough. Never change to fit in,” said Brockhoff.

“I also hope people start complimenting people more, even if it’s someone you don’t know.”

Her video ends with a message that says “now it’s your turn to make someone smile.”