I’m sure most of you remember reading the story of Karen Klein, the grandmother and school bus monitor who was bullied to tears by students. Many people had a strong reaction to the incident and thought the kids deserved extreme punishment. Thankfully, the students involved were suspended from school for a full year and required to complete 50 hours of community service with senior citizens.
Despite the terrible insults that Klein had to endure, some good has come from the incident. A man living in Toronto who had been a victim of bullying himself heard Klein’s story and decided to set up a donation site to raise money to send her on a vacation. The response was extremely overwhelming and more than $700,000 was raised for Klein. In addition to retiring, she has used the money to set up the Karen Klein Anti-Bullying Foundation with a goal of using it as a gathering point for millions of people to support the anti-bullying movement.
“If this is doing good, then I don’t need to feel bad about it. I hope that nobody else has to go through anything like that,” Klein said on an appearance on the Today show. “I’d parent to tell that kids that it’s not to be done. It’s not right. How would you like it if somebody did it to you?”
Even though I’m sorry that this incident occurred in the first place, I’m glad that it got so much publicity because it helped raise anti-bullying awareness. I think it’s great that Klein set up a foundation dedicated to the cause and I hope it makes a real difference.
What are your thoughts on the Karen Klein incident and her new foundation? Tell me in the comments below!
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I just can’t believe some dip shit kids would treat her so badly. Would they treat their own grandmothers as such? Doubtful.
This makes me especially mad because I remember, in high school, kids would make fun of our elderly bus driver. She did tend to skim the curb every time she made a turn, but she didn’t deserve to be called “Kirby” all the time or messed with while she was trying to get us home safely. :/