A Philadelphia florist has found an unconventional way to
tackle a problematic social issue. Stein Your Florist Co.
created a public-service announcement video
featuring employees, family, friends and neighbors to draw attention to the
issue of bullying and to commemorate National Bullying Prevention
Month in October.
Using a traditional technique for designing floral set
pieces, owner Patrick Kelly created a floral plaque to convey
their message: Stop bullying. Participants were invited to hold the floral sign
and say something inspirational in the video, which was posted on YouTube
and sparked an outpour of emotion from the community.
“All of the responses have been positive, supportive and
inspirational,” says Jennifer Kelly, operations manager at
Stein Your Florist Co. “We are honored to have touched people with our simple
message, spoken with flowers, and delighted to share our love, acceptance and
optimism with the world.”
Almost everyone has been affected by bullying in some way. Whether
you have been bullied yourself, have been a bully, or have witnessed bullying.
It is an epidemic that is sweeping our nation, causing pain, sorrow, and in the
worst circumstances, death. Suicide as a result of bullying, known as
bullicide, is an unfortunate reality that we hear about all too often on the
news and in our communities.
October is Bullying Prevention and Awareness Month, so we
thought it would be the perfect time to remind everyone that bullying is a real
problem and it is not ok.
As in all things that we do, we always look to flowers to
guide us, so we used a traditional technique for designing floral set pieces
and created a floral plaque to convey our message:Stop Bullying.
We then invited Stein’s employees, family, friends and
neighbors to hold our sign and say something inspirational about bullying.
This
created a rather touching and inspirational video. We hope you enjoy it and
that you do your part to end the cycle of bullying, this month and always. Speak up, stand up, and don't let anyone be bullied.
Some statistics
about bullying:
·1 out
of every 4 teens are bullied. ·As
many as 160,000 students stay home on any given day because they’re afraid of
being bullied. ·1 out
of every 5 kids admits to being a “bully” or doing some bullying. ·282,000
students are physically attacked in secondary schools each month. ·80%
of the time an argument with a bully will end up in a physical fight. ·On
the playground, a child is bullied every 7 minutes… o4% of
the time an adult intervenes, o11%
of the time a peer intervenes, o85%
of the time no one intervenes. ·97%
of middle schoolers are bullied while online. ·33%
of students have heard another student threaten to kill someone.
When we visited our neighbors at the convenient store we
caught this young man off guard with our large sign and camera. When we told
him what we were doing he was so moved that he opened up and said that he too
had been bullied and would be happy to be in our video. Thank you for helping
us spread this important message.
For more information about bullying prevention visit