Every September, Notre Dame begins Start with Hello Week, a week designed to promote inclusivity, kindness, and friendship. And every September, new friendships are made, and old friendships are strengthened.

Start with Hello Week first began in December of 2012, after a tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. A campaign was created by the Sandy Hook Premise to increase social interaction and inclusion among students. This week strengthens the bonds between students, and these eight students are examples of just that.

Freshmen Kiera Luderer and Sydney Challgren-Hopkins met during the summer. “We met on the volleyball team, at our first practice. We didn’t talk to each other that much in the beginning, but I thought she looked like a nice and funny person. Start with Hello Week has allowed us to participate in more activities together, and we’ve had more time to talk to each other or just hang out.”

Sophomores Juliet Rusche and Sophia Kruger met in their French class. “So in my freshman French class, we didn’t really have a lot of chances to talk to people because we kind of just got straight to work. There was one girl who sat behind me who seemed very nice. When it was hello week and they would give out the wrist bands and name tags, it would give us a chance to talk and learn about each other. Now we are still friends in French together!!”

Juniors Gabriel Iaconis and Griffin Mckeon met randomly their freshman year. “He showed up at our table one day. We ended up sharing a lot of interests, and so now we hang out a lot and do fun stuff. Start with hello week gives people a reason to break the barriers between people you don’t really know and strengthen relationships with one another by learning more about that person, and that’s what happened between me and Griffin.”

Seniors Evan Ravenna and Eric Bell met in their freshman year. “Me and Eric met on the first day of freshman year in our band class; we only had 7 students in our class. I was intimidated by him at first because of how he’s very much the opposite of me with how outgoing and spontaneous he is, while I try to be much more composed, calm, and orderly. But then we quickly became friends on the first Wednesday night band rehearsal when we instantly connected through our shared connection of loving the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure series, and our humor and everything just clicked. Start with Hello Week brought us closer because we bonded over how we wrote our names on our cards and drew funny little cats on them.”

Make sure to participate in Start with Hello Week, and help brighten someone’s day. Who knows, maybe someone you meet during this week will brighten your day too!