Pink Shirt Day has become an integral part of every calendar year since its inception.
It's held annually on the third Wednesday in February to raise awareness about bullying in schools and it all began in 2007 after a Grade 9 student in Cambridge, N.S., was bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school. Two Grade 12 students in Berwick, N.S. SA国际影视传媒� Davis Shepherd and Travis Price SA国际影视传媒� got wind of what happened and decided to make a point. They bought 50 pink shirts and handed them out to their classmates to wear the next day.
ItSA国际影视传媒檚 now turned into an international event with the goal of getting others to stand up to bullying and violence.
Here at home, schools have been working on various activities and initiatives to spread the world about why it's important and that includes Mildred Hall School.
Ryan Nichols, the school's vice-principal, said there was an assembly held in the gymnasium on Tuesday to kick everything off.
"That's something we generally do every year," he said. "Everyone comes dressed in a pink shirt and we talk about the importance of the shirt and why we wear it."
In addition to the assembly, there's a school-wide activity that goes along with it. This year, Nichols said there's going to be a kindness goal where staff will spot students performing an act of kindness. Each act will earn a student a token that will be put on their classroom door explaining what the act was and why it was kind.
And like any goal-oriented activity, there is a reward at the end of it should the target be reached.
"If we get to 1,000 tokens, we'll take the kids out for an activity, maybe an afternoon of sliding at the Snow Castle," said Nichols.
Bullying isn't a problem at Mildred Hall, added Nichols, and it's a welcoming place no matter who you are.
"It doesn't matter if you've been here one year or five years, everyone's the same and we open our arms for everyone," he said. "We don't seem to have a bullying problem here and if we do find out about one (instance), we stamp it out pretty quickly. You get some instances where you hear about something, but it's often disagreements between students. Our kids are really good about being respectful. We tell the kids that bullying is intentional and I think they get the message."
