School kids, wandering lonely in the playground because they don’t have any friends – this is an intolerable notion for Horace Allen School first grader Jackson Burrows.

The seven-year old youngster is heading an initiative to make sure none of his schoolmates would be sad or alone in the schoolyard.

To fund the project he sold a few of his toys, received donations after a presentation at Crowsnest Dental, received funds from friends and in the end he raised $200 to install two buddy benches in the HAS playground.

The buddy bench is an ordinary bench placed in the schoolyard. The idea is that kids who are looking for playmates can sit on the bench to signal they would like someone to come ask them to play.

The buddy bench idea has been around for some time in Europe and recently exploded in popularity in North America. Buddy benches have been installed in schools in Lethbridge and Taber. This will be the first set of buddy benches in the Pass.

“It’s so everyone can have a buddy,” said Jackson in a presentation to his classmates on April 28.

Inspired by his fundraising efforts, Tracy and Brad Murray, parents of Jackson’s schoolmates, donated two benches they happened to have.

Chad Oberholtzer, another parent, has volunteered to install the benches sometime this week.

“I think this will be a great idea,” said HAS principal Elaine Garner. “It helps kids feel they can make a friend. It’ll be a way for kids who are feeling lonely and sad to find a place where they can connect with somebody else in our school. We do have new students coming in. It’ll be a way to make them feel like they’re part of our community.”

Jackson’s mother Amber Burrows said her son learned about the buddy bench concept and became very excited about it.

“I just talked to him about it and he really wanted to get one here in the school,” she said. “He’s a sensitive kid, an emotional kid and the idea of kids being lonely and sad is not okay with him so he thought this is an awesome way to help so that everyone can have a friend at school.”