Celebrating the No Place for Hate parade
Students demand a hate free campus
April 7, 2018
Once a year, students and faculty come together to speak out about the issue of bullying and work to unify all students. With the help of students and administrators, the No Place for Hate parade has been able to grow and become an anticipated event by hundreds of students the past three years.
Student Leadership worked to organize the parade and made multiple posters, t-shirts, and pins to advertise the event.
“Our student leadership class started planning for the parade at the beginning of the spring semester,” junior Sophie Wolfe said. “We started inviting different clubs to participate and we had the social studies classes make posters to hang around the school and to showcase in the parade.”
This year after the parade the Multicultural Awareness club held a performance in the pit, which showcased the girls in the organization, the “Diamonds and Pearls”, doing a dance routine to entertain the students. The routine consisted of dance moves and songs that empowered the students and engaged the crowd.
“We wanted to dance to songs that were popular but also focused on beauty, so that’s why we used “Pretty Girl Walk” and “Flawless”,” junior Kennedy Hartman said. “It’s important that we have this parade because we never know what someone is going through mentally and physically.”
Kacy Benson has done many presentations for students here at Bowie; teaching students life lessons and motivating them. Benson and his wife student leadership teacher and girls basketball coach Vickie Benson put in large amounts of work to create the parade and increase participation.
“I help the Student Leaders and other organizations that are involved remember why we are doing this. It is a really big task
to pull the parade off,” Kacy said. “There are times students want to quit or don’t want to work on the project. That is where I feel like I can come in and bring them back to the purpose.”
Mentors to some and inspirations to others, Kacy and Vickie work to motivate students to carry the message of the No Place for Hate parade with them everyday and hope to grow the parade in future years.
“Coach Benson and I want to see more student participation with more clubs and organizations making a stand and participating in the march,” Kacy said. ”In the future, it would be great to involve 8th grade leadership groups from our middle schools to join and see that Bowie is a safe and great place to be.”