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We’re thrilled to share news of our single biggest expansion to date! For the 2024-2025 school year, Shanthi Project has extended Calm+Kind+Focused—our in-school, evidence-based mindfulness programming—to all incoming kindergarten students in the Easton and Bethlehem Area School Districts, plus all fifth graders in the Bethlehem Area School District. Together, these new classrooms make up an initiative that will serve students going through pivotal times of transition in their schooling. Younger students will be supported in their transition to kindergarten, and older students will learn skills and tools for their upcoming transition to middle school.
Our Calm+Kind+Focused (CKF) program, led by Shanthi Project’s extensively trained, trauma-informed mindfulness instructors, runs for sixteen sessions. The curriculum focuses on age-appropriate strategies that can help regulate the classroom and promote a focused, supportive, and constructive learning environment.
These lessons teach children about the brain and nervous system and include techniques to cope with change and stress, process strong emotions, nurture healthy peer relationships, and practice tolerance, empathy, and gratitude, among other skills. CKF prioritizes sharing long-term, sustainable practices that can be utilized not just by students, but by their classroom teachers, too, beyond the scope of our program.
For years, Shanthi Project has enjoyed long-standing relationships as a program partner with select Easton and Bethlehem schools, but now, with this initiative, we’re reaching farther than ever! This program expansion will provide equitable access to CKF in all seven EASD elementary schools and all sixteen BASD elementary schools, which will help students transition to kindergarten in both districts. It will also help fifth-graders in BASD prepare for the transition to middle school. These programs are designed to support students at a pivotal time in their lives and support the academic and social development of many young children who have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As Shanthi Project’s Executive Director notes,
“Transitions can be challenging for students, and mindfulness offers tools to navigate change with confidence and resilience. We are thrilled to provide broad-scale mindfulness education to 124 kindergarten and 5th grade classrooms—an estimated 3,000 students through this initiative alone. We're grateful for the generous support of our funders who share a commitment to empowering students during critical moments of development and growth.” - Kimberly Hopkins, Executive Director of Shanthi Project
In addition to direct instruction, each classroom receives tools and resources to support ongoing mindfulness education between CKF sessions and after the program ends.
"The specific strategies taught by Shanthi Project staff induce calmer minds, which raises functional IQ, which can lead to higher level of thinking and reasoning. The science is clear that a regulated nervous system is one that is flexible, resilient, and one of the greatest gifts we can give one another. The staff of Shanthi Project are equipping our students as young as five in our district to be better humans and achievers. We greatly appreciate the partnership." - Nikolas Tsamoutalidis, Administrator for Student Supports and Wellness
The ability to provide access to Shanthi Project’s essential mindfulness programming in all Bethlehem and Easton Area elementary schools is possible through the support of individual donors and generous funding from B. Braun, Bethlehem Area School District, City of Bethlehem, Crayola, Fidelity Bank, Kiwanis Club of Palmer Township, Lehigh County, Magellan Behavioral Health of Pennsylvania, Inc., Northampton County Mental Health, PA Commission on Crime and Delinquency, Penn Community Bank, Two Rivers Health & Wellness Foundation, and United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley. We’re so thankful for their support of this unprecedented expansion, especially as Shanthi Project celebrates our fifteenth anniversary this year!
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