On February 23rd it is Pink Shirt Day (anti-bullying day). What is Pink Shirt Day? It is where everybody wears pink to spread the message that we need to stop bullying. There is a great story behind how this day started. A boy in grade 9 from a highschool in Nova Scotia wore pink to school on the first day and he got laughed at just for that. He got bullied and it was something that was totally unexpected. I bet he went home that day and was very hurt, terrified, scared, and felt that nobody really cared for him.
The next day he didn’t know what was going to happen. When he went to school, I imagine he felt the same way that he had the previous day. When he got to school I think his feelings must have changed. He was probably so surprised, glad, nervous, and felt so cared for. Do you know why? Because almost everybody was wearing pink! They called it “The Sea Of Pink”. How did everybody know to wear pink? Well, there were two grade 12 boys who had heard what had happened the day before. They went onto facebook and sent emails to get the message out that they wanted everybody to wear pink the next day to stand up and do something about bullying. They went to local thrift stores and spent their money on any pink shirts they could find. It was like a scavenger hunt! After he saw “The Sea Of Pink” the boy who had been bullied might of got a pink shirt from the boys that were handing the shirts out and he joined in too.
Will you join in on this campain to prevent bullying? I am definitely joining in, and I’ve got to do my own little scavenger hunt to find a pink shirt for myself.
image: pink by {GABY} released under a CC Attribution license