Scheduled Sept. 21.
It’s back-to-school time, and the Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover Foundation is once again holding its Anti-Bullying 5K Race/Walk fund-raiser, in memory of 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, on Sept. 21 in Springfield’s Forest Park.
The foundation was formed three years ago in memory of Carl, a Springfield student who took his own life in 2009 at age 11 after being bullied at school.
Gwynnetta Sneed, who started the foundation, said she believes the organization and its fund-raiser have helped raise awareness.
Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover “I think the foundation has made great strides towards anti-bullying by organizing our annual back-to-school 5K/2K,” Sneed said. “This gives us an opportunity to engage the community at large in our efforts to combat bullying by showing our solidarity at the beginning of the school year.”
This year, organizers hope to raise $10,000 with the 5K race/2K walk.
Since its grassroots beginnings, initiated with the blessing of Carl’s mother, Sirdeaner Walker, the foundation has raised more than $50,000 with the 5K and a spring fund-raiser. Forty-three students have been awarded a total of $44,500 in scholarships.
At the foundation’s scholarship gala this past spring, it awarded $18,500, which included a $1,500 scholarship, funded the the Newspaper-in-Education program of The Republican, in memory of both Carl and Phoebe Prince, a 15-year old- South Hadley High student who committed suicide on Jan. 14, 2010, after repeated bullying.
Walkers take part in the 2012 Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover Anti-Bullying Back to School 5K Road Race and 2K Walk in Forest Park in Springfield. This yearâs event is Sept. 21. Sneed said the foundation has worked to reach a diverse audience.
“We award scholarships to students regardless of their race, creed, color, religion or sexual orientation,” Sneed said. “We reach across the aisle and state lines, and have received scholarship applications from as far away as New Hampshire, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.”
The foundation has awarded scholarships to students from Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire.
“My ultimate goal at the inception of the foundation was to raise enough money to award scholarships in honor and in memory of Carl,” Sneed said.
“Carl was an excellent student with dreams of attending Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. However, Carl will never have that opportunity. But we can realize his dream through the students who are the recipients of our scholarships.”
Sneed said the foundation uses anti-bullying as a forum to bring awareness to the impact it has on young people.
“Bullying has been around since the beginning of time, and it will be here until the end of time,” she said.
“However, our goal is to bring the community together for our 5K/2K at the beginning of the school year so our children, parents, teachers and administrators, along with the surrounding communities, show solidarity and take a stand against bullying.”
Dr. Barry Sarvet, vice chairman of the psychiatry department and chief of child psychiatry at Baystate Medical Center, said bullying is defined as a systematic form of harassment which involves a power differential.
Sarvet said while it hasn’t been determined that bullying is more prevalent today than it once was, there’s more awareness today about the harmful effects of bullying.
“It does have an association with suicide, depression, and withdrawal from school,
(and) serious developmental consequences,” Sarvet said. Sarvet said it’s important to correctly identify bullying when it is occurs.
“The main distinction is the systematic nature of it,” he said. “If it’s a single incident, (such as) insulting someone, being mean or causing some hurt, that’s not bullying.”
Sarvet said school communities are becoming more actively involved in bullying prevention programs, and have protocols for addressing it.
“It’s been recognized that what makes it possible for bullying to occur is the bystanders — people are maybe encouraging or condoning the bullying,” Sarvet said.
“Instead of trying to demonize the bullies and ‘catch the bad guys,’ the most effective intervention includes everyone in the school, to strengthen the ability of the school community to respond to victimization and sort of stop it in its tracks so it becomes culturally inappropriate and uncool.”
Legislation now before the state Senate and House has been proposed as a way of better enforcing the state’s 2010 landmark anti-bullying law, passed after the suicides of Carl and Pheobe, by requiring that schools compile and file bullying incident statistics with the state, and conduct an anonymous survey among students every three years.
According to one confidential survey, 18 percent of high school students and 36 percent of middle school students report having been bullied in 2011.
Registration for the walk/run is from 8 to 8:45 a.m. The run and walk both begin at 9 a.m. Registration is $25 for runners, which includes a T-shirt if registered by Sept. 6, and $5 for walkers, which includes a wristband.
Six Flags in Agawam will host an Anti-Bullying Day on Aug. 24 to benefit the foundation.
For more information on the event or to register, visit www.carljoseph.org, call (413) 219-3118 or email carljoseph11@gmail.com.