De Soto High School’s CatPride, a group that promotes making good choices, participated in anti-bullying week from Oct. 8-11, 2013.

“[Anti-Bullying Week] reminds us of the core values. It’s not right and everyone deserves respect. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from,” junior Aubrey Heer said. “It actually puts how wrong it is into perspective.”

The group started the week by having members walk down the hallways carrying signs with eye-opening anti-bullying statistics and statements written on them.

Then, on Tuesday, students had the opportunity to have a Jolly Rancher sent to a friend during Seminar. At lunch they got a slip of paper that read “Have a Jolly good day!”

On Wednesday, the school was encouraged to wear the color orange to represent unity against bullying. At lunch they were handing out orange candy corn to students as a reminder to stand up for others and to not bully.

Senior Travis Bullock painted a graffiti sign with the word “Tolerance” written across it for the entire school to sign on Thursday.

Some members of CatPride went to Starside Elementary School on Friday morning to hand friendship bracelets out to students as they arrived at school. The bracelets represented friends who stand up for friends and were against bullying.

CatPride thought that it was important to reinforce that bullying is not acceptable and that students need to think  about the consequences before they speak to others.

“In high school we blow it off to the point that we think spreading rumors and giving people nasty looks isn’t bullying,” junior Nikki Pelkey said. “It still affects people like bullying.”