PEABODY — Sixth-grader Sara Koteci won the Higgins Middle School essay contest, earning both a $100 Amazon gift card from the Jason’s Legacy Foundation and bragging rights, for her powerfully written submission, which focused on anti-bullying.

Koteci wrote about a memory from second grade that left a great impact on her. She described sitting at the “allergy table” during lunch every day because of her peanut allergy. Koteci reflected on how isolated she felt eating alone every day, especially since it was hard to ignore the kids who “would glance over and giggle, as well as give me dirty looks,” she wrote.

“This wasn’t the kind of bullying that always gets noticed; but it was the kind that made me feel left out,” Koteci wrote.

But everything changed when another student used their free will to perform a simple act of kindness: sitting with Koteci at lunch.

“It wasn’t a huge scene, but it was enough to make me feel like I actually belonged there; like I actually was a human and not some freak who couldn’t tolerate peanuts!” Koteci wrote.

She shared that the student who sat down with her on that fateful day has actually become her best friend. In fact, Koteci said it was this friend who nudged her toward submitting an essay for the contest.

“That text from her inspired me to write about her because she was my first friend back when I was just sitting at the table all alone eating my grilled cheese,” Koteci said, emphasizing that small acts of kindness truly make a difference.

Koteci said that moment in second grade has inspired her to be the kind of person who is observant, paying attention to her surroundings, to her peers, to see if anyone is lonely or being spoken about in a negative way.

From there, Koteci shared that the next step is to actually make a meaningful impact on someone who may need a friend. As examples, she wrote, “maybe checking up on a quiet student, or asking someone if they’re OK, or sitting with the one girl who is always alone at the allergy table.”

“It doesn’t have to be big. It just needs to make you realize that the kindness you give will always be louder than the silence they get,” Koteci wrote.

Cely Rosario, Jason Bernard’s sister, said all of Jason’s siblings got together to read the essay submissions before choosing Koteci as the winner.

“It was so beautiful to see their points of view on how to make things better in this ‘conflicted’ world,” Rosario said. “A few shared their personal experience and how they turned something negative into something positive.”

Koteci said she hopes her essay can make an impact by encouraging more students to be kind and look out for one another.

“I try to become that person for someone else every day, and I think it’s really important for everyone to become that person,” Koteci said.