Students arriving at Burnaby Mountain Secondary on Jan. 5 were confronted with thousands of sticky notes telling them they were beautiful. It was all part of a special initiative brought forward by the school's new gay-straight alliance club.
"Everyone loved them, it was a really great, positive response," said Grade 11 student Ashlih Kassam.
Kassam said the club ordered roughly 4,500 sticky notes, and members showed up before classes to post them around the school. The main message was: You're beautiful, and the students had the notes made in eight different languages.
"(They) said just really wonderful things, like: 'Hey, your shirt looks good today.' Just cute things like that," she said.
The students seemed to react well to the messaging.
"It was definitely 90 per cent positive," Kassam said. "I saw a couple of smiles, so that's always good."
Kassam helped start the gay-straight alliance, which has about two dozen members, before the controversy around the district's anti-homophobia policy broke out this past summer.
"It's also called an anti-bullying club. It's to include everyone, no matter what you look like and who you are. Our main goal is to make people feel good because you don't know what they may be going through," Kassam said.
The students made an effort to pick up the thousands of notes afterwards, and they are considering doing it again at the beginning of the next school year.
The club got the idea for the notes from a similar initiative called Operation Beautiful, started by Caitlin Boyle, a 27year-old American woman who left nice notes on mirrors in public bathrooms. Boyle's movement of countering negative self-talk by leaving anonymous positive messages has spread, and she's published a book on it and has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Network. For more on her project, visit operationbeautiful.com.
