ST. PAUL – Be kind. It’s a simple, yet powerful message agreed by most.
Pink Shirt Day, which will be on Feb. 28 this year, is a campaign promoting kindness and creating awareness around bullying in schools, workplaces, homes, and online, according to CKNW Kids' Fund.
Lynn Smid, director with St. Paul Regional FCSS, believes kindness is a powerful form of expression against bullying. Kindness, she believes, fosters positive and healthy relationships.
For Smid and the rest of the team at FCSS, Pink Shirt Day is an opportunity for the community to recognize that “it doesn’t take much” to be kind.
A little bit of kindness can make a big difference. It could be as simple as “a kind word or a word of encouragement... to even a stranger,” she says. “The more we practice those versus the opposite, the greater we are as a community.”
This year, the St. Paul Regional FCSS partnered with St. Paul Education to promote Pink Shirt Day. They will be distributing jars of pink candy to schools in the area, along with an empty jar.
Students will guess how many candies are in the jar at their school. The student who has the closest guess will win the jar of candy. Then, that student will have the opportunity to put some of those candies into the empty jar and share it with others.
Additionally, there will be paper “hearts” handed out in schools, posing the question: What is kindness to you? Students will be encouraged to write their answers on the heart.
