Students Embrace Message For Pink Shirt Day

Local students are finding new ways to celebrate Pink Shirt Day.

Students at Kalamalka Secondary in Coldstream have taken the anti-bullying event to a new level with what they call Kindness Week.

Grade 12 student Emma Knight says they’ve been trying to make the school more welcoming with various activities.

“I think it shows that bullying is everywhere, and you don’t always see it, but everybody has a chance to say something and do something about it,” Knight tells Kiss FM.

Knight says they created a Wall of Kindness, and had students performing random acts of kindness.

“There was different pieces of paper in a jar and you would pick one out, and once you had done it, you would put it on the wall,” says Knight.

They also put different hand soaps and lotions in the bathrooms, along with inspirational quotes.

“The BC Lions came in today to speak about preventing violence.”

One of the founders of the movement, Canadian Travis Price, was recently in the Okanagan to talk to students.

He says bullying can be stopped in 10 seconds — or less — if someone intervenes.

“As a bystander, you can look at a situation and say ‘I’ve got three choices. I can go and tell a teacher. I can step up and help in the moment, or I can do nothing.’ Two of those choices are good choices,” says Price.

Price and classmate David Shepherd started the now global event in 2007 in Berwick, Nova Scotia in support of a male student who was bullied for wearing a pink shirt.

Photo: Students write messages on the Wall of Kindness at Kalamalka Secondary  in Coldstream (submitted).