Wednesday is World Kindness Day, and Clark County Public Schools is celebrating it in a bigger way than ever before.

Becky Lowry, CCPS director of food services, said to honor World Kindness Day, all CCPS cafeterias will hand out JonnyPops, a frozen fruit pop.

“On the popsicle sticks, they have kindness sayings, too,” Lowry said.

According to its website, JonnyPops is on a mission to make the world better one pop at a time.

JonnyPops started as the brainchild of two cousins, Erik Brust and Jonathan, who wanted to make a healthy, but tasty treat. Brust later secured the help of four classmates at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, to make their vision come to life, according to the website.

But Jonathan died of an accidental drug overdose before seeing his vision come to life. The remaining founders decided to name the company after Jonathan, and his death also sparked the company’s message of sharing kindness.

JonnyPops has a “flexible kindness toolbox” to help educators in the cafeteria classroom or traditional classrooms to teach and empower students to drive acts of kindness to create kinder and happier school environments, according to its site.

Lowry said because JonnyPops meets nutritional requirements, and because its message is vital for students today, it was a no-brainer to bring JonnyPops to every Clark County school — from Clark County Preschool to George Rogers Clark High School — for World Kindness Day.

During lunch on Wednesday, every staff and student who goes through a cafeteria line will receive a JonnyPop. By the end of the day, Lowry’s staff will have handed out more than 5,600 JonnyPops and messages of kindness.

“I just think it’s just a good, positive thing to start good, good positive conversations with the kids,” Lowry said. “Maybe it’ll radiate to the next class or the ride home.”

Staff will also hand out “Caught Being Kind” stickers to students who demonstrate kindness.

Staff and students will also fill out a kindness pledge, and students will learn about kindness within the classroom.

“When she was telling me about the program, it fit right in with counselors,” Christy Fulks Bush, CCPS Title I component specialist, said. “We took off with the counselor piece of it, and all the teachers and all the counselors are going to be able to have some type of classroom guidance with kindness so they can get students on board.”

Lowry said spreading kindness and teaching students to be kind is important, especially in the negativity and cynicism that seems to run rampant in society.

“There’s so much negativity it seems like lately that we just wanted to do something good, something that was going to make people feel good,” Lowry said.

Lowry said she first heard about JonnyPops during one of the monthly meetings she attends for all food service directors in Kentucky.

“Every month they bring in different people to talk to us as a group,” Lowry said. “And (JonnyPops) came and talked to us about (their program).”

Lowry said she knew instantly she wanted to bring the program and the message of kindness to Clark County.

“We never want to miss an opportunity to be kind,” she said.