You may be under the impression that benches are simply meant for sitting, but the at-risk youth from Rushford Academy in Durham are giving a whole new meaning to what a bench can be. These new benches are called “Buddy Benches” and aim to provide much more to students than a place to sit.

“The concept of the Buddy Bench is that it is a place for kids [where] if you need a friend on the playground, you go and sit on the Buddy Bench and the rule is, if you see someone sitting on a buddy bench, people need to go over to play with them,” said Community Foundation of Middlesex County (CFMC) President and CEO Cynthia Clegg.

The program has presented five benches to area elementary schools so far; the next installation will be at Deep River Elementary School on Monday, June 11 at 9:30 a.m.

The idea behind the bench came from Rushford Academy, a long-term residential substance abuse treatment program for boys aged 13 to 17. From there, the academy partnered with the Community Foundation of Middlesex County’s Council of Business Partners, which supplied a grant from the At-Risk Boys and Young Men fund to cover the cost of materials to make these benches.

The benches will all follow the same design and will be clearly labeled “Buddy Bench” and a plaque reflecting the name of the donor responsible for that bench. The materials to build the benches are being funded by a combination of donations from the Community Foundation of Middlesex County and individual donations.

The Buddy Benches are rolling out now to all the schools that attended the CFMC-sponsored October 2017 Rally Rally for Bully-Free Communities, CFMC’s Susan Daniels said.

The Rally for Bully-Free Communities is organized by the community foundation and its council of business partners and includes Region 4’s Chester, Deep River, and Essex Elementary schools; Cheshire’s Chapman and Highland Elementary school; and Middletown’s Farm Hill, Snow, and Spencer Elementary schools, each of which will receive its own Buddy Bench.

For the past five years, all the schools in Middlesex County have been invited to attend the Rally for Bully-Free Communities, where students and teachers participate in team-building exercises organized by EMPOWER Leadership Sports & Adventure Center employees.

“We’ve done programs to teach parents and even grandparents how to help their kids be what we call upstanders, not bystanders, to bullying,” said Clegg.

By partnering with Rushford to develop a no-bully zone program for the schools, Clegg said they’ve reached more than 10,000 kids, teachers, bus drivers, and other adults with the anti-bullying campaign.

As for the benches, their benefit isn’t limited to the kids in each school. When the benches are presented to the schools, Rushford students come along and are able to “see their work and understand that their work is going to be doing some good things,” Clegg said.

“It’s all about partnering, all about building respect and compassion, it’s the community rallying to let students know we’re behind them, and it’s a teaching opportunity for teaching kindness,” said Clegg.