Have you read the statistics lately? Nearly 50% of Canadian parents report having a child victim of bullying and 1 in 3 Canadian youth have been cyber bullied. While these statistics may sound staggering, the good news is that we can do something about it. It was incredibly uplifting to see so much pink light up my social media feeds in support of the #PinkShirtPromise movement last February. But what warms my heart even more is the ongoing desire, especially among today's youth, to continue working towards change and to help put an end to bullying. Thanks to the Shaw Youth Grant Program, students who want to create a school environment where everyone feels safe can put their plans into action with the help of a Kindness Sticks grant of up to $5000!

There are a total of ten grants available and they are open to all students up to, and including, Grade 11 students who are attending a school within Canada (excluding the Province of Quebec). 

Teachers and parents, I hope you will join me in encouraging our youth to get creative and design a project that will promote kindness in our schools. As a thank you, I have created a fun sticky notes template if you want to add or create a Kindness Sticks mural. I sketched these using the Sketches app on my iPad and imported them into a Google doc. 

I have adjusted the size of each image to 3" by 3" to fit a standard sticky note. Once you print out a copy, apply a single sticky note on top of each one, aligning them with the borders and the sticky part adhered to the top of each square. On my printer, I placed the sheet of paper with the sticky notes face down and the top of the template closest to the print head. Et voilà, pretty pink "Kindness Sticks" sticky notes!

Disclosure: This post has been sponsored by Shaw Communications. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own.