Mix It Up campaign battles bullying by asking kids to get to know their peers

By Staff Writer

Approximately 1 million students in more than 2,700 schools in the U.S. recently participated in Mix It Up at Lunch Day in an effort to reduce bullying.

The initiative, which was sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance Program, encouraged students to sit with someone new in the cafeteria for one day. Event organizers hope that student interactions will help break barriers between children of different backgrounds.

As part of Mix It Up, some schools planned activities for the entire day to kick off a yearlong exploration of social divisions. The director of Teaching Tolerance said that these activities will allow students to better understand each other and discover what they have in common, thus creating an environment with less harassment.

Schools in all 50 states took part in Mix It Up. In an online survey of K-12 educators who signed up for the program, approximately 85 percent said that bullying was a major concern at their institution.

The American Justice Department reports that one out of every four kids is bullied by another youth each month.