By Sean Neary
StuCo member sophomore Mia Sharpneck said that people can also come to Bands Against Bullying on March 18 at 7:00, but what is Bands Against Bullying? Bands Against Bullying is a free concert put on here at Lincoln High in the Ted Sorensen Theatre and we have local bands, musicians and artists come. “The concert is free, but we’re selling respect T-shirts and if you haven’t bought one they’re $15,” StuCo member junior Lauren Lesiak said.
“We had Student Council members going around with forms, so you had to find a StuCo member and they had a form you could fill out, but we do have extras that you can buy at Bands Against Bullying,” Respect Campaign Coordinator senior Kaylee Robinson said. StuCo president senior Cassidy Taladay said that people who have already bought their Tshirts this year or last year are asked to wear them or something else that will represent how they will respect some group or themselves in any way and that there will also be donations at Bands Against Bullying.
“Any donations and any profit that we make from T-shirt and lanyard sales and bake sales, we will send to The Bully Project, which is a national project that makes an effort to educate people about bullying and to make an effort in different schools to prevent bullying,” Robinson said. StuCo member junior Mackenzie Healey recalls that, a couple years ago, at Lincoln High, there was a senior named Emily Gasper who had the idea to do a concert against bullying, and it’s changed from just a week that year to, starting this year, the whole campaign. Also, according to Healey, other schools have been doing campaigns and concerts like this. Northeast recently did a Rock-a-Wish concert to benefit respect.
Robinson recalls that Northeast also formed an anti-bullying group called CAB and that North Star has also been doing some things on anti-bullying. We have eight performing groups this year, and, in between acts, StuCo talks about bullying and how to stand up for people who are getting bullied, and against the bullies, and they have things that bring the community together and that aspect, and then StuCo will show a couple of videos that they made throughout the month for respect, “It’s just a way to bring the community together and spread the word out there and letting people know they’re not on their own,” Robinson said.
Reagan Meyer, who is an LHS alum., will be opening with a slam poem, and then Ben Hadley and Kevin Tran have another poem, and LHS Band is performing. We have LHS Drumline. We have both UNL acapella groups: the Bathtub Dogs and the Boots and Cats. We have Illusion Theatre, who will be opening the second act after intermission, and they’ll be talking about bullying and that, and then there are two Academy of Rock bands that will be performing. Academy of Rock is a local program here in Lincoln where students come and they learn how to form a band, how to perform as a band, how to promote, how to play, and how to build their own music.
The two Academy of Rock bands we have are Big Red Rejects and Population Control, and they’re both local high school musicians that study at the Academy of Rock. “I think that the only thing we need is for people to spread the word about Bands Against Bullying, but the biggest thing that I think people can do that would help would just be, within their daily lives, just be more respectful and recognize your respect in helping others make decisions to be respectful,” Robinson said.