After someone scrawled “whites only” on a bathroom stall in a suburban Chicago high school, a student there is lifting spirits with positive notes—about 2,500 of them.
Katherine Hayes, a student at Gurnee’s Warren Township High School, said she thought the school could use a lift after tensions rose in the wake of the presidential election. So she filled the school’s hallways with uplifting messages in an attempt to change the atmosphere for the better.
“People told me it made their day, seeing the bright colors,” Hayes told NBC 5. “They said it made them smile, even if it was a little thing, it had an effect on them.”
The notes read with mantras of “you are loved,” and “have a great day.”
Prior to Hayes’ positive penmanship, the racist message left in the school’s bathroom divided the school and created a hostile environment, students say.
“It was very tense, clearly divided the people protesting and people against it—or didn’t care,” Connor
Hankla, a Warren Township High School student said.
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But students like Hayes and Jaylen Davis, who helped post the uplifting messages, say things have changed.
“Once we put the notes up, people were coming back together,” Davis said. “Just knowing that I had a good effect on people heals my heart a little.”
Michelle Vaughn, a Warren High School Township parent, says she is proud of the exercise in inspiration.
“As a parent, I’m ecstatic about what the students are doing,” Vaughn said. “They are demonstrating the change that they want to see.”
Police say they have not identified the person responsible for the bathroom graffiti.
