During the 2022-23 school year, 38% of reported bullying incidents in Indiana schools were verbal, with 30% being physical.
Social/relational bullying and a combination of bullying each were 11%, while written/electronic bullying was 10%, according to the Indiana Department of Education website. In total for the 2022-23 Indiana school year, there were 5,460 reported bullying incidents, up from 5,103 in 2022; 1,984 in 2021 and 4,495 in 2020.
Organizers of the sixth annual Bowling Against Bullying at The Bowling Alley, 1535 N. Detroit St., Warsaw, from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3 hope to help reduce those statistics.
“Since I’m in the schools now, a (school resource officer), you kind of see it firsthand the effects of bullying on the kids, especially when it goes unreported,” said event co-organizer and founder Shaun Mudd, Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office SRO. “Kids don’t say anything. The kids need to speak up. They just walk around with their burden on their shoulders, so it’s really important for kids to speak up about it, tell an adult, tell a trusted adult what’s going on.”
There will be two speakers this year at the Aug. 3 event. One will be from the Parent Coalition for Safety & Wellness, with the other from Rio’s Rainbow, both out of Elkhart.
The Parent Coalition is a grassroots collective of dedicated parents, guardians and volunteers pursuing their mission to create child safety and culture change through advocacy, education and empowerment throughout the state of Indiana, according to their Facebook page. They were moved to action by the loss of several children to suicide around Elkhart County.
Rio’s Rainbow was formed after 12-year-old Rio Marie Allred, of Elkhart, who was diagnosed with Alopecia, died by suicide on March 14, 2022, after experiencing bullying for her condition. Alopecia is an autoimmune disease that causes your body to attack your hair follicles and leads to hair loss.
Rio’s Rainbow (riosrainbow.org) was established in her honor to effect change and to ensure that no child ever again finds themselves the victim of tortured bullying and no family is forced to live out the rest of their lives with the loss of the child they love as a result.
Along with the bowling and featured speakers, Bowling Against Bullying will have an inflatable obstacle course, provided by Lake City Bounce, outside of The Bowling Alley. The radio station will broadcast live as well.
“Through donations, we’ve been able to order T-shirts, hats, pencils and draw-string backpacks and bowling ball squishy balls. So that’s all coming. It’s all free. T-shirts are free, hats are free, everything is free. Not charging for anything,” Mudd said.
No one will have to pay to bowl during the three-hour event or to eat the pizza and drink the soda. The only thing participants will need to pay for are the arcade games.
All ages are welcome, but it’s mostly geared toward kids. There will be a raffle of prizes - including bicycles - throughout the event and every kid will win something. A friend of Mudd’s is donating the bicycles, but he wasn’t sure how many were going to be given away.
“One year we had 13 bikes. It was a bit much, but it was cool. Some of those kids wouldn’t be able to get a brand new bike otherwise,” he said.
In 2017, Mudd found out about a student who was being bullied at a local school. Touched by the student’s story, he wanted to do something special for him and other bullied students. It was supposed to have been a one-time thing when he and a friend gathered door prizes and paid for food and lanes at The Bowling Alley in Warsaw. It became an annual event and, thanks in part to Live Well Kosciusko and Executive Director Lisa Harman, it’s become a nonprofit.
Everything is made possible by generous donors, Mudd said.
“Every year, it’s the donors that make this possible,” he said. In 2023, there were 100 kids at the event. In the first year, Mudd estimates they had 50 to 60 kids. “Growth is the name of the game.”
Parents need to be present with their children.
Within the last two years, Mudd said they’ve raised enough money to start a Bowling Against Bullying scholarship.
“So there’s now a scholarship out there that will be available to draw from next spring,” he said, noting they’ve raised $27,000 to start the scholarship through the Kosciusko County Community Foundation. They had to raise $25,000 to start the scholarship.
“The scholarship is a big deal for us,” Mudd said, adding that it’s kind of “crazy” to think that they raised $27,000 in just two years to start the scholarship. It’ll be available to be awarded next spring, he said, but he needs to sit down with the Community Foundation to figure out the criteria. The scholarship will be awarded to a student who was bullied. More details on the scholarship are to be announced.
Bowling Against Bullying board members are Holly Hummitch, Joanna Eccles and Paul Nowak. Along with a Facebook page, the website can be found at bowlingagainstbullying.com.