Hundreds of thousands of Pink Shirt Day supporters across Canada donned their pink and committed to a bully free life on February 29th 2012 for the annual CKNW Pink Shirt Day campaign. In this 5th year of the Pink Shirt Day campaign, CKNW News Talk980 and the CKNW Orphans’ Fund sold 60,000 pink t-shirts and raised over $150,000 to support the Boys & Girls Clubs anti-bullying programs (picture included below).
“In 2007 when the campaign began at CKNW, a few hundred t-shirts were sold in support of Pink Shirt Day. We are thrilled to see this campaign grow to over 60,000 in 2012. Not only are we committed to raising money for organizations supporting anti-bullying, we are also focused on bringing about greater education and awareness to what bullying is,” said Tom Plasteras, Program Director for CKNW.
This year saw notable celebrities such as E-talk correspondent Elaine Lui (aka Lainey Gossip), David Booth of the Vancouver Canucks and Jay Demerit of the Vancouver Whitecaps rally behind the campaign through personal viral videos and messages supporting Pink Shirt Day involvement. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, proclaimed February 29th Pink Shirt Day in Vancouver and many other municipalities followed suit.
In the month of February, CKNW ran more than ten different segments focused on topics such as workplace bullying, school bullying, cyber bullying and how this type of behavior negatively impacts its victims. “We will continue to use our radio station and the CKNW Orphans’ Fund to bring much needed information to the public on this issue year round,” Plasteras added.
Pink Shirt Day T-Shirts were sold both online at PinkShirtDay.ca and through London Drugs retail outlets in Western Canada. To date, the CKNW Orphans’ Fund and radio station CKNW have raised over $375,000 for the Boys & Girls Clubs in support of their anti-bullying programs.
“The Boys and Girls Clubs are grateful for the support from the CKNW Orphans’ Fund through the Pink Shirt Day Campaign, which is critical to helping us ensure that each and every one of the 10,000 children, youth and their families we serve annually have opportunity to participate in our programs,” said Carolyn Tuckwell, CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of South Coast BC. “A key element of our program is to develop healthy, positive relationships, and BGC’s anti-bullying programs are the cornerstone of that learning”.
