If you are at Metropolis in Metrotown this morning, you might be surprised by an 11- or 12-year-old handing you a flower with an uplifting note or offering to carry your groceries or sidling up to you in a McDonald’s lineup and offering to pay for your order.
And you might notice about 125 kids – most wearing pink – busting a few moves in the middle of the mall at about 11:30 a.m.
It's all part of Maywood Community School’s efforts to spread the love on Pink Shirt Day, an annual day to celebrate inclusion and stand against bullying.
For three years now, Maywood’s Grade 6/7 leadership class has partnered with Metropolis to bring pink day to the mall, with Metrotown giving each of the 25-or-so students in the class a $10 gift card to spend on strangers.
In groups, the tweens descend on the mall every Feb. 24 with a two-pronged mission: to perform one random act of kindness for free and to come up with another kind act using the $10.
“We don’t want them to think they can only do kind things with money,” Maywood community school coordinator Gayle Beavil told the NOW.
Pink Shirt Day at the mall is just one way the area school works to encourage students to be STAR (safe, thoughtful, accepting and respectful) learners, according to Beavil, who said those efforts have paid off.
“This school is extremely welcoming,” she said.
Maywood’s Pink Shirt Day initiative is one of many across the school district that will celebrate inclusion and take a stand against bullying this month.
About 279 Kitchener Elementary students and staff joined 5,000 others in a giant ‘acceptance dance’ at the Vancouver Giants Pink the Rink event Feb. 17.
Morley Elementary students took in a Me to We presentation on how to stop bullying.
Burnaby North Secondary’s student government partnered with the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) to put on a series event during a random-acts-of-kindness week.
Burnaby South’s GSA brought in transgender author and storyteller Ivan Coyote on Feb 16, presented a lesson on cyber bullying by the Peacemaker Club on Feb. 17 and hosted a potpourri of Pink Shirt Day activities this week, including a pledge tree, affirmation stickers on lockers, factoid booth and pink-costume photo booth.
While pink day is a great way for students to showcase their understanding and leadership in acceptance, tolerance and kindness, however, superintendent Gina Niccoli-Moen said learning those values is a yearlong endeavour.
“What’s really critical is that it becomes the fabric of who they are and what we do in the district every day,” she said.
