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| Students at Our Lady Queen of Peace School in Madison draw posters in the hallways with anti-bullying messages. (Catholic Herald photo/Kevin Wondrash) |
MADISON — Kindness, acceptance, and inclusion were the words of the day recently at Our Lady Queen of Peace (QP) School in Madison.
October 19 marked a national Unity Day where students would “make it orange” and “make it end”.
Students across the nation, as well as those at QP, participated in the day by wearing orange and showing a message of support, hope, and unity to show that they are united against bullying and for kindness, acceptance, and inclusion.
Messages of love
QP students spent the afternoon making posters using sidewalk chalk and markers to create messages and pictures of love and anti-bullying.
The older students were paired with their younger “faith buddies,” such as eighth graders with students in 4K and sixth graders with students in first grade.
The faith buddies do activities together during the school year, including attending Mass together.
Some of the messages on the posters included “smile,” “happiness,” and “love” while some of the images included hearts, kids holding hands, and even a football.
Stopping bullying
The National Bullying Prevention Center says one in every four school-aged children will be bullied this year.
The students felt it was important to do what they could to stop bullying.
“[Bullying] brings down people’s self-confidence and when you don’t have that, you don’t make friends as easily,” said sixth grader Finn Caulum. “Without friends, everything’s harder.”
To help in preventing bullying, sixth grader Abigail Klipstine said, “I can stick up for my friends if they’re getting bullied and make sure I don’t bully people.”
“If you see bullying happening, you can stand up and say, ‘Hey, that’s not cool. You need to stop,'” said sixth grader Madison Foley.
The posters were put on display around the school where everyone can see the positive messages.