This pin combined two things I love so perfectly together: anti-bullying, and free resources. Yes, free. Mean Stinks is an ant-bullying campaign through Secret deodorant that is geared towards preventing bullying amongst adolescent and teen girls. They use fun tactics and products like painting your pinky nail blue, elastic bracelets that sport “mean stinks” and fun tshirts, designs, and sayings. They have also gained the support of former and current Disney channel stars like Demi Lovato and Zendaya. You’re probably asking why I even care since 5 year olds have a while to go until they adolescent age. I care so much because bullying can happen at ANY age, to BOTH genders. This means that I can still make it relatable to my classroom.
The free resource kit included tshirts, bracelets, blue nail polish, posters, cards, and more. When I shared it with the other UTRPP students, they quickly sent away for their free kit, too. You can see in the picture at the top of this page how some of us came together one day to gang up for good by wearing our shirts and sporting our blue pinky! It has helped us all to grow our passion to stop bullying, and we been attempting to also bring it to our school. Being at a Title 1/Renaissance school, we have a high retention rate, meaning many of our intermediate grade students have reached, or are approaching, their adolescent years. This could really be a great program to reach out to them.
I encourage you to learn more about the Mean Stinks campaign and send away for your own kit! Bullying has unfortunately become a big, everyday problem that we can’t become bystanders to.
https://meanstinks.com/