Promoting kindness on Pink Shirt Day

For the first time since the pandemic, the Boys and Girls Club Okanagan’s (BGC Okanagan) Pink Shirt Day Breakfast fundraiser was back in-person at the Laurel Packing House Wednesday morning.

The organization reached their $40,000 goal which will go towards programs that focus on supporting children and youth learning key values like empathy, caring, and inclusion.

BGC Okanagan CEO Jeremy Welder told Kelowna10 the day acts as a kickoff for the year to promote kindness.

“We can’t stop bullying if we just have those behaviors one day a year,” he said. “We really want this to be the way to raise awareness and get people to be kind to one another throughout the year.”

Welder added there are three key values they teach the students.

“Kindness, respect for others, and at the heart of BGC programs is belonging,” he explained. “That sense of belonging and being able to find those friendships and be in a safe place with safe adults who can help with those positive relationships and connect with other kids in their community.”

During the morning session, guests had the chance to hear from former NHLer and author Aaron Volpatti who talked about his story of perseverance after a horrific campfire incident where he was burned on over 40 per cent of his body. He overcame the odds, and ultimately made it to the big leagues.

“I’m all about standing by dreams and especially telling kids to dream big,” he said. “I think that’s threatened with bullying, and I think we need to support and be kind to these kids who want to dream big things.”

Although Volpatti was better known using his hands for fighting rather than scoring, he said the perception of what he did on the ice, doesn’t reflect the kind of person he ultimately wanted to be perceived as.

“Just because I’m [a fighter] on the ice, I’m still a kind good person and I think it’s good for people to see that,” he said. “Because you see ‘X’ doesn’t mean we live by that or preach that. We’re all about inclusion, kindness and empathy, these kinds of things that are needed.”

Pink Shirt Day was started as a movement by two Nova Scotian teenagers who organized a protest in their high school to wear pink in sympathy with a Grade 9 boy who was bullied for wearing a pink shirt.

Since 2008, over $2 million has been distributed to youth-anti bullying programs in British Columbia and throughout Western Canada.