Schools in Athabasca donned their pink attire Feb. 27 to mark Pink Shirt Day, doing their part to raise awareness and to help prevent bullying.
The original event took place in a small Nova Scotia town in 2007, where a pair of students bought and distributed 50 pink shirts after a Grade 9 boy was bullied for wearing one at school. Since then, Feb. 27 has been National Anti-Bullying Day across Canada.
Suzie Beckett, a teacher who organized the event at Edwin Parr Composite School, said it was conducted as part of the school’s community projects class.
“It was mostly the junior high students who put on the pink, but lots of our Grade 12s put them on, as well,” Beckett said. “We specifically targeted the Grade 8 students for this year’s campaign, because my Grade 10-12 students said that the eighth grade was the hardest year for them in terms of bullying.”
She said that each Grade 8 student received a cupcake as part of this year’s campaign.
“We handed out 140 this year,” Beckett said. “In 2017, we handed out cupcakes to everyone in the school, but we decided that 700-plus was just too many.”
As well as handing out cupcakes, Beckett said they also showed the students what kindness was by being kind to them.
“It’s like the quote, ‘Throw kindness around like confetti,’” she said. “The community projects class also had a chat with them about what it means to be kind, and why it’s never cool to be a bully.”
Grade 8 student Liam Day wore his pink shirt and ball cap during the day.
“It’s always good to stop bullying and to support the victims of bullying,” Day said.
HIs classmate Vanessa Gross said she supports any effort to stop the spread of bullying.
“I am always proud to wear pink,” Gross said.
Dew Reyes, a Grade 5 student at Landing Trail Intermediate School, said she found the day to be inspiring.
“I support any effort to stop bullying,” Reyes said. “I really like that they chose to mark the occasion by wearing pink, because that is actually my favourite colour. It was great to see so many people in the school wearing that colour.”
Whispering Hills Primary School principal Lorna Kravontka said it was not just pink shirts staff and students were wearing.
“Some had their pink socks, while others wore hats, too,” Kravontka said. “The day highlights what bullying behaviour is and how it applies to being mean.”
She said one thing the Grade 3 class did was make paper pink shirts with inspiring messages on them.
“Each phrase promoted kindness and anti-bullying messages,” Kravontka said. “The day before on the school’s health day, we talked about conflict resolution, which fit right in to why bullying is never the way to go.”
Kravontka added conversations on bullying should never only be discussed for just one day.
“Dialogue needs to be ongoing,” she said. “The more we talk about it, the more bullying can be prevented.”
