Three middle schools are coming together to build esteem and a school.
North Saanich, Bayside and Royal Oak students created designs for a tri-school contest to create a T-shirt for Pink Shirt Day.
“It’s a good way to get through to kids, because it’s creative,” said Cailin Jenkinson. The Grade 7 Bayside student is among more than a dozen kids who entered a logo in the contest.
An artist at heart, she prepared a handful of designs for the competition. Her favourite is a flowing tree, as suggested by her mom, that encompasses words of empathy and peace on its branches.
“Lots of people would wear it to support anti-bullying day, but be eco-friendly too,” she said.
She figures the art contest will waken awareness before Pink Shirt Day arrives on Feb. 29.
“I think it’s a day for everyone to wake up and realize they shouldn’t be bullying,” Jenkinson said.
The anti-bullying day originates in a tale of two Grade 12 students in Nova Scotia, who didn’t sit around and watch bullying, but got involved. They distributed pink shirts to all the boys in their school in defence of a Grade 9 student. Now kids across the country wear pink one day a year to support the cause.
“It’s a day to realize everyone’s another person,” said Katharine Yeo, another of the artists in competition. “You can basically tear apart a life and it’s really scarring. People don’t want to remember life as painful.”
Now in Grade 6, Yeo remembers being picked on in Grade 1.
“It was really painful,” she said.
Jenkinson too recalled some belittling when she was younger.
“It sucks. It’s not fun,” Jenkinson said.
The girls’ logos are among the dozens teachers will peruse before the students vote for a winning logo. The logo will go on pink T-shirts to be sold for $10 ahead of anti-bullying day.
The money raised will go to the three Youth in Action teams. This year, the three groups are working together to raise $10,000 to build a school and well in a village in Haiti.
Get involved
Want to help battle bullying in schools? Encourage your business or group to wear pink on Feb. 29 or buy the official T-shirt at pinkshirtday.ca or at London Drugs.
Then, let the Peninsula News Review know you’re participating in Pink Shirt Day, by emailing editor@peninsulanewsreview.com and we could run your photo in the paper.
