Megan Meier Foundation

Hi everyone!

We are Caity, Maddy, and Ryan and we are juniors at Cedar Ridge High School.

As members of the DECA organization at Cedar Ridge, we have chosen this year to team with a community service organization to raise money and awareness to their cause. As we were researching organizations to support, we learned about the Megan Meier Foundation, whose mission is to bring awareness, education, and promote positive change to children, parents, and educators in response to the issues surrounding bullying and cyberbullying in our children’s daily environment.

We immediately agreed that this was the organization that we wanted to support. Cyberbullying is something we have each encountered on Twitter and we found this cause to be very relevant to our society today and, particularly, our school. We have seen teens expose other’s secrets (often embarrassing in nature) or just post rude things about others all for the coveted ‘retweet’ which then is repeated all around social media and potentially reaching hundreds or even thousands of others. Some may not necessarily single out a specific person when posting degrading comments, which then just leaves their followers to wonder “is this about me?” or to assume they know who it is about which then leads to more bullying and hurtful comments.

Social media also allows people to ‘hide’ and let their hurtful comments be made behind a screen, shielding them from confrontation. Anonymous accounts are created which allows the comments to be actually directed at a particular person because the person posting s not known to the rest of the social media universe. Accounts are made in the name of a specific school allowing students to send in embarrassing, derogatory, and mean comments or pictures for the rest of the school to see.

It is specifically due to the above that this foundation was created. Cyberbullying resulted in the suicide of thirteen year old Megan Meier. Following this tragedy, Megan’s mom, Tina, formed this organization so that hopefully no other child or parent would need to be subjected to this pain. To hear Megan’s story, please click on the following link: http://www.meganmeierfoundation.org/megans-story.html

All money raised will be donated directly to the Megan Meier Foundation allowing this organization to spread its message through national and international media appearances such as network tv, radio stations, news magazines and syndicated talk shows to raise awareness and to hopefully stop tragedies like this from occurring. They also travel throughout the country addressing the issue of bullying and cyberbullying to students, educators, administrators, parents, law enforcement, youth rallies and others.

We believe it is through education and awareness that we can wipe out bullying and cyberbullying and put an end to the torment that kids endure that in some instances feel the only way out is suicide. Please help us in our cause to reach our goal and we thank you so much for your support.

Respectfully,
Caity, Maddy and Ryan
CRHS DECA