Traveling to LeRoy School on Mar. 9 gave me a good feeling.
I got an opportunity to see eight schools from around the region join together wearing pink in support of Pink Day, an anti-bullying campaign.
Bullying affects a lot of people, especially kids at the high school and elementary school level.
Hosting events like these are critical for children because it tells the kids that might be bullying other children that what they are doing is wrong.
It also shows the children being bullied that there are a lot of people who do not support bullying and allows them to feel like they have help.
Now admittedly, having rallies talking about how to stop bullying and actually stopping bullying are two totally different things but the first step towards eradicating a problem is becoming aware that there is one. Through spreading awareness about bullying you are putting children through the first steps of stopping bullying.
When I went to high school there were fights all the time. It was very rare that you could make it through a week of school without there being a fight.
I can remember hearing about one particular circumstance where a kid was being bullied and apparently had been for a long time. Instead of picking a fight with his bully he got up and smashed a window in the cafetorium on his way out of the building.
My school never did Pink Days and admittedly I had never even heard of it before I went to LeRoy School but I wish my school did have it because there is a chance that some of the fights that happened weekly could have been avoided and possibly the student that smashed a window in frustration of his being bullied might have stopped.
My school was a lot different from some of the local schools in this area in that I went to school with 900 high school students. With a much larger school you do not have the same opportunities to know every person in the school. As a result picking up on and stopping bullying is much harder.
With Pink Day you can help spread the work making the awareness higher as well as the potential for stopping bullying.
The second Wednesday of April every year is declared the International Day of Pink, so on Apr. 13 let’s all wear pink to show our support and help raise awareness for the effects of bullying.
Bullying could be happening to your children or grandchildren and you may not even know.
