ARCANUM — Pre-K through 12 students in the Arcanum Butler Local School District showed off their acts of kindness throughout the year Thursday afternoon by forming a continuous chain and showing it off to the community.

This Kindness Day is based around the Friends of Rachel program, which is named after Rachel Scott, the first student killed at Columbine. Her family’s goal was to promote kindness to students throughout the world.

“Her family goes out to provide presentations on kindness and anti-bullying,” said Arcanum High School Principal Jason Stephan in an earlier interview. “We were fortunate to have them come this year, encouraging us to promote kindness, so this is a culmination of all that. That is our goal for that day.”

According to him, students K-12 have been keeping track of their kind acts and writing them down on paper, making a chain which hung on the hall walls in the school throughout most of the school year.

As a result, 22,000 acts of kindness were connected, resulting in Thursday’s event, stretching the kindness chain down Main Street as a big celebration of their achievements.

Stephan said there was an estimated 1 1/3 miles of chain, stretching from as far north as Garbig & Schmidt LLC Attorneys at Law to as far south as the hardware store.

“There were 125 rows of chain at 60 feet apiece,” he said. “And we have approximately 1,000 students.”

It was noted that the faculty also took part in the event.

At one point, organizers had to call some of the students back to fill in at other points along the way because there was too much chain and not enough people, but it worked out well. Once everything was situated, they all stood out in the street and cheered the occasion.