"If you be kind it will always come back to you."
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These are the wise words of year five pupil Katie Keane, whose design Sammy the Self Acceptance Sausage Dog has won a national Kindness Factory competition.
Katie, 11, and her classmates entered the Kind Kids Design a Mascot competition as part of a school art and wellbeing activity.
Her design won the section and it was also named the overall competition winner.
"I was really happy and surprised as well," Katie said about the win.
Entrants, aged four to 13, were asked to design a mascot for one of the 12 attributes of kindness which included collaboration, compassion, empathy, gratitude, honesty, humility, humour, mindfulness meditation, perspective, positivity, self-acceptance and trust.
Katie attends St Patrick's Parish Primary School in Port Fairy and designed the mascot to depict the attribute of self acceptance.
The Koroit resident's design of Sammy, drawn in texta, was a clear favourite with the judges "for her clever visual interpretation".
The 11-year-old said the dog was long and skinny like a traditional sausage dog but he was wrapped in a hot dog bun, topped with tomato sauce and mustard.
Katie said Sammy, which also had a shiny tail, was a good example of self acceptance "because he's a sausage dog he's different to all the other dogs".
The Kindness Factory ran the competition, in association with ACM, which is the publisher of The Standard.
Katie's mascot design will be used on all Kindness Factory curriculum materials relating to the attribute self acceptance.
Sammy will be made into a 3D model so it can be animated to create a story to teach self acceptance using Katie's mascot design.
As the overall winner, Katie will receive a cash prize of $2000 for her school, St Patrick's Parish Primary School Port Fairy, plus a kindness pack with yoga mats, five signed copies of Kath Koschel's book Kindness and five Play Kind card packs with a total prize value of $3500.
The Kindness Factory is a not-for-profit organisation that creates educational programs, with education partner Kaplan, for schools to help foster a kinder community.
Kindness Factory general manager Justine Whipper said the curriculum was free and had resources for schools to use to teach the attributes of kindness.
"There are resources for each of the 12 attributes with activities separated into five different age categories, with all activities linking back to the Australian curriculum," Ms Whipper said.
"What we do know after going into schools is that the attributes are big words, and for younger kids, we wanted to bring them to life using a picture.
"So when the curriculum is used in the future, this will be a really lovely way to give a face and meaning to a word for younger people.
All of the student mascot winners will feature in ACM regional newspapers on Monday, November 13, 2023 to celebrate World Kindness Day.
