Jeff mayor wants Greene County in the forefront
When an elementary child told Cheryl Dideriksen of being bullied on the school bus to Scranton, to the point of her glasses being broken, Cheryl and her husband Dave saw it as a call to action. They decided there’s a need for more community awareness – not just in school, but everywhere – of the prevalence of bullying, there there’s a need to reduce it.
They talked with Greene County sheriff Steve Haupert; he had some coloring books for elementary children, but the Dideriksens were envisioning more. An online search of anti-bullying programs quickly led them to the national Bully Project, but they soon learned there is no Iowa affiliate in the Bully Project. The Dideriksens want to change that.
Dideriksens will launch BIG, their acronym for Bully Project In Greene County, Saturday, Feb. 21, from 1 to 5 pm at the Elks lodge in Jefferson. They’re planning to show two versions of the documentary Bully, with the G-rated version at 1 pm, followed by speakers, and then concluding with the PG-rated version. The G-rated version includes the story of a boy in Sioux City.
The Dideriksens have sent letters to city, school and county officials, as well as state elected officials, asking for their support and inviting them to the Feb. 21 launch. Dave is making the rounds of meetings; he spoke at the Greene County school board meeting Jan. 21 and at the Jefferson city council meeting Jan. 27.
“We’re having the kick-off event in February to make the community aware,” Dideriksen told the city council. “This isn’t a thing that we’re going to bring to Greene County and then dump it on the school…. This is going to be a community-based thing where we can work in conjunction with the schools, but not necessarily add to the teachers’ curriculum or add classes because we don’t want to burden them. We want it to be a community thing.”
“The other issue with bullying is that it’s not just the school. It’s in the street. It’s in business. It’s in government. It’s in union labor negotiations. Bullying is an incessant picking, pestering to get an edge, and the victim feels like they can’t get away from it and they have no recourse. What we want to try to do is create a positive atmosphere in our community so that we don’t have to worry about that,” he said.
The Greene County school board didn’t comment. Jefferson mayor Craig Berry talked about BIG before Dideriksen’s arrival at the meeting. He supports the effort, and sees it as an opportunity to set Greene County in the forefront, just as happened with the Home Base Iowa initiative. Jefferson/Greene County was the first to meet the requirements of Home Base Iowa and has had a lot of favorable publicity because of that. Gov Branstad has pledged to increase bullying awareness efforts in his new term in office. “This is a nice way to dovetail with those efforts, and keep in the governor’s good favor,” Berry said.
More information about the Feb. 21 event will be available at a later date. To read the letter the Dideriksens mailed, click here: BIG letter
