ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The Ohio Valley Mall is aiming to tackle bullying this October.

The mall’s annual Kindness Kickoff began on Thursday with the goal to spread kindness throughout the community.

The month of kindness began by asking for customers to sign a petition pledging to be kind.

Mall Marketing Director Candi Noble-Greathouse said that spreading kindness is more important now than ever. The event focuses on promoting kindness and preventing bullying among youth.

“Kindness is very important always, but it definitely is very important today, that people were kind in children, adults, and just everybody in this world,” she said. “I have a sheet of random acts of kindness that the kids can get every day. They can clean their room, pick up their toys, and share a compliment.”

Kids can receive the sheet at the Kindness kiosk located in the center of the mall.

The children will fill out the sheet each time they do a random act of kindness and once it’s completed, take it to the customer service center to redeem for a mystery treasure.

This year’s month of kindness has a new addition, as the mall has teamed up with The Arc of Ohio. Regional director Kara Erwin said that the organization has a young adults group that meets regularly as a way for its members to socialize.

The group will create a “kindness rock” initiative, which will see several rocks painted by the group and then hidden around the mall throughout the week of October 13-19.

Once mall customers discover the hidden rocks, they can take them to the customer service center to redeem a prize.

Erwin said that the addition of Arc is great because it uses the mall for a great social opportunity for its members.

“Candi definitely recognizes that we come down here, she sees a lot of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities socializing and just being kind to one another and getting along,” Erwin said. “So she asked us to be involved, and once a month, we have a young adult hangout and I suggested that we have the young adults paint the kindness rocks.”

She added that when a person has autism, they might want to make friends, but it can be really hard for them to do those initial initiations of social skills.

“It’s easier sometimes if buddies show kindness and just break the ice and make that small talk or that conversation happen,” she said. “This message is basically showing that we really all do need friends and people to live our best lives.”

Erwin added that the kindness rocks will help residents understand and remind them how important it is to be a positive part of a society.

Another partner in the Kindness Kickoff is the Belmont County Sheriff’s Office.

Belmont County Sheriff James Zusack said that it’s important for his office to be involved in events like the Kindness Kickoff to show residents that the police don’t only show up for tragedy.

“We try to be present, to show the kids that we’re here to help and not always there for tragedy events,” Zusack said. “Which we do both, but more so we’re here to help kids and help them out and let them know not to be scared of the police.”

He added that bullying among youth has grown out of control.

Zusack said that he believes the rise of bullying is due to technology and social media.

“It could just be non-stop for some kids,” he said. “Back when I was in school, you didn’t have that, you went home and you didn’t hear anymore about it. But now it seems to proceed into social media, and it causes kids a lot of problems that are getting bullied.

He added that his office sees a lot of non-stop bullying through social media and hopes that teaching children at a young age to be kind will help.