Mack Benn Jr. Elementary School students learned a little kindness really does go a long way, when Suffolk public safety personnel paid tribute to them at the bus loop Wednesday.

Troy Babb, a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office, made signs praising the children for their kindness and good behavior this past month, as well as extolling those virtues.  “Kindness: It’s the little things that count,” one sign said.

Babb and others from Suffolk Police Department and Suffolk Fire and Rescue held up the signs and cheered students as they left the school building after last bell.

The children were also honored with a live performance by Norfolk State University’s Hot Gumbo Brass Band, which brought a little bit of New Orleans to Mack Benn.

David LeFevre, principal at Mack Benn, said the school’s Great Kindness Challenge has reduced student referrals for misbehavior by 30 percent and suspensions by more than half since the return from winter break.

“We want to try to keep the kids in school,” LeFevre said. “We don’t want them to be suspended, because they lose instruction.”

The challenge is celebrated nationally Jan. 26-30, but at Mack Benn, spearheaded by guidance counselors Robbin Riddick and Robbie Plain, it has been running throughout January.

Themes involve trying your best, respecting others, showing compassion and shunning bullying.

Random acts of kindness have been encouraged, and the best responses from students to “How do you show kindness to others” are read during morning announcements.

What’s more, LeFevre said, each grade level was encouraged to write or draw messages of kindness to their same grade level at another school.

Maj. E.C. Harris with the Sheriff’s Office said instilling the importance of kindness in children of elementary school age makes for a better community down the road.

“If you start when they are young, instilling those values of being respectful to each other … they carry it up through their teenage years,” he said. “If we don’t start there, sometimes it can be too late, unfortunately.”

Also attending the celebration was School Board member David Mitnick. “It’s a good thing to celebrate,” Mitnick said.