Lakeview students celebrate Pink Shirt Day with acts of kindness and throwing pies at teachers, all in good fun. (Submitted Photo/Amanda Pockrant)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

Pink Shirt

Meadow Lake students celebrate Pink Shirt Day with pies and acts of kindness

Feb 28, 2024 | 5:04 PM

Students at Lakeview Elementary School in Meadow Lake are learning the true spirit of kindness.

Feb. 28 is Pink Shirt Day and while schools across the country are looking to spread awareness about anti-bullying, the youngsters at Lakeview have decided to take a different tack.

“When we talk about Pink Shirt Day, we go beyond just today and we really focus on the kindness part of it,” said Principal Amanda Pockrant.

The whole day was actually primed roughly 14 days earlier with Random Acts of Kindness Week. The dedicated week took place from Feb. 11 to 17 and students did a different activity every day.

“We’re an elementary school so focusing on kindness and how to be kind to one another and what that looks like and sounds like daily is, for us, more beneficial than just one day,” she said.

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That time was spent on a simple question: What if? Monday was for practicing positivity, Tuesday was for standing up for each other, Wednesday was all about the love since it was Valentine’s Day, Thursday was focused on not judging each other by the way we look, and Friday was aimed at helping one another and bringing out their inner superhero.

“Even our (pre-kindergarten) had these special superhero capes and when their student demonstrated an act of kindness, they were acknowledged by getting to wear the superhero cape for the rest of the afternoon.”

Pockrant explained that there was also a special bulletin board set up in the library that said, ‘Be the I in kind’ where the students who did good deeds got to stand in as the ‘I’ and have their photos taken.

Fast forward to today and the big event was a school assembly where she highlighted the kindness exhibited by the students along with pointing out some other fun aspects of the week.

“It just fills us with happiness to see a child being kind,” said Pockrant.

“When a child is able to be kind without being prompted, it just gives us great satisfaction and that hopefulness that they’re going to transfer it outside of our building walls.”

The school also supported the Telemiracle 48 this year and wrapped up the results with the assembly.

“We believe it’s kind when you donate to others to help people,” she said, adding they raised $880.

For every $50 raised, there was a corresponding pie and the students got to choose from a list of teachers whose faces they wanted to squish.

“Then we put it out to have individual bought pies so, for $30 you could buy a whole pie and then your child could choose who they wanted to pie,” she said.

Twenty-six pies were thus thrown at staff – three of them personally saved for their beloved principal, who expected the assembly to be loud.

“They’re beyond excited.”

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

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