McDowell Mountain Elementary School has added three new benches to its playgrounds, but these are no ordinary benches.

The benches are known as “buddy benches,” and their purpose is to help elementary students make friends when they have no one else to play with.

“This is not an ordinary bench, there are rules,” Jill Cooper, the teacher who had the idea for the benches, said. “If you don’t have anyone to play with, you sit on the bench. While you’re playing, you need to keep an eye on the bench. If somebody is sitting there, then you go over and say ‘do you want to play with me?’”

Cooper got the idea from a friend in Texas who had the benches at her school. The more Cooper researched the benches the more impressed she grew with the impact they had.

“It is just amazing, the success schools are having with friendships,” Cooper said. “Some research said that it could even reduce bullying. Kids this age don’t have the skills to go up and say ‘Hi, my name is so and so, will you play with me?’ They don’t have that confidence yet, so this helps.”

Since explaining the rules of the buddy benches to the students, Cooper has seen many of the kids find friends to play with.

“I was out here the other day with the third graders, the oldest kids we have… there was a little girl sitting on the buddy bench and, sure enough, a group of girls ran right over and got her,” Cooper said.

McDowell Mountain was able to get these new benches through donations from Sunset Kiwanis and the Conti Foundation.