Mix It Up Day At Hallsville Jr. High

Yesterday I had a great opportunity to interact with the 7th and 8th graders at Hallsville Jr. High along with my good friends Amy Austin and Buddy Logan from 101.5 KNUE.  Mix It Up Day was a national school function promoting kids to get to know each other.  It was a blast.

I remember what it was like during lunch time in middle and high school - you go to the cafeteria and sit at the same table and hang with your same group of friends and never really get to know other kids in your class.  Well, yesterday when the 3 of us showed up for the 7th and 8th graders' lunch where they didn't have a normal lunch because we mixed things up!  More on that coming up.

Amy, Buddy and I talked to them about getting along with each other and getting to know other kids besides the ones in their click and that everyone needs someone to talk to and hang out with.  It doesn't matter what you're background is, religious belief is, race is or if you're a member of the band or cheerleading or athletics - they all have something in common and can help each other out.

I think Ethyl, one of the ladies working in the cafeteria, said it best that you all have the same problems, whether it's making friends or having trouble with class, you can help each other out.  Once we did our little speech, that's when the fun began and things got mixed up!

With the mic in hand we would walk around the cafeteria and pick out a student and have them pick up their lunch and walk them to the other side of the cafeteria and sit at another table where that person would go to another table and so on!  The kids were into it and soon they started volunteering others and even themselves to be picked and moved around.  Each person that was moved around was entered into a raffle to win buckets of candy and things we brought to give away from the radio station.

At the end of the lunch these kids were introduced to several new kids in their class that they don't normally sit with or associate with and I hope that the moves we made made lasting impressions upon them.

This is something that we can translate into our lives as adults too.  If you work at a big office, go ahead and take the Mix It Up challenge, go have lunch with someone you don't normally have lunch with or when in church on Sunday sit in a different pew and get to know others.