BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Cynthia, how are you doing? We’re doing great. Awesome. Now what are the things I love about my job is I get to travel the country and I get to speak to schools all over the from coast to coast and every so often we get a step foot into a school that’s doing some remarkable things like next level. And I wanted to take the time to, to stop and interview some of those individuals, some of those schools to give more ideas and tactics and resources to other schools around the country. And what you’re doing is truly remarkable and not just to to toot your own horn or for me to toot your horn for you, but I guess the a lot of schools and what you’re doing and the impact that you’re making is, is remarkable. And so what, what I wanted to do is you have a couple projects that you’ve implemented at your school. And so the first is you run the Eagles rise up. It’s a, it’s an anti bullied blog, is that correct? Correct. So tell me a little bit about the blog and and, and who, who writes it, what is the student involvement? Where does it get posted? How to get started? Give me the quick overview rundown on that.

CYNTHIA MILONE
Okay. So we have a system on canvas where we have a discussion area. So I every month on my student leaders in myself start a question that has to do with bullying. Like for instance, what, what is the difference between a bystander ender and an upstander and then the kids all chime in with their answer. So usually I have contests between sixth, seventh and eighth grade and then usually have bored the kids that have the best answer or we do, we put a quote of the month on a bulletin board that recognizes all the students with their discussion questions and answers.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Awesome. And then you take these and then you, you, you upload them into a blog. That’s correct. Now, now who does that? Do you have a, do you have a student or is that, is that youth behind the scenes doing that?

CYNTHIA MILONE
It is me behind the scenes. And then what ends up as a result is that the kids start asking their own questions about either a bullying situation and the, obviously they leave names out of it and that, and they ask other kids for advice and how to best handle it.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Wow. And what was, when you first were starting this, what, how you get the momentum going to get the buy in of the students?

CYNTHIA MILONE
We every, every beginning of the year we have a kickoff program and I share a personal story about my son who was severely bullied online. And by sharing Nat, it’s, that’s what the kickoff was. It inspired the kids that they, well one my, my son attempted suicide after being bullied online and I mean he’s find out he was actually 21 and he is now at the university of South Carolina and is getting straight A’s. So we are hoping that by sharing his story he can be, you know, inspire somebody else that it’s going to end up being okay. So, so that’s why we started the blog and the kids that were inspired by a story and want to do what they can to make a difference in somebody else’s else’s life and that making sure that no one feels alone.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Now the blog, the, the students that are are submitting, it can be any students. It’s not just the leadership students or things like that. It’s any students in the school, correct. That’s correct. And then you guys also have a Twitter account and it’s an N S S bully blog. That’s the Eagle rise up Twitter. And how do you guys utilize Twitter in this whole communications?

CYNTHIA MILONE
Usually I take other quotes made by students from the blog and put it on my Twitter accounts for others to see.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Now that probably allows a lot of the parents and community members also kind of interact with that as well. Yes, absolutely. Now what’s the parents’ response to all this? [inaudible]

CYNTHIA MILONE
actually, I’ve had, I had many parents that would come up and talk to me. He’s there like after school or I’m also a coach, so they usually come to me when I’m coaching and they couldn’t think me enough. I actually had a student that never, he himself never like responded to the blog, but he took it upon himself and read it every single day. And for the first time he said he did not feel alone. Like he realized that there were other students that were feeling the same way.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Well now how long has it been going on so far?

CYNTHIA MILONE
For about years.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Four years. So now the students, you know, you’ve had a whole turnover of students in your school, so now the new students, this is, this is become literally part of the school culture. That’s correct. Wow. That is remarkable. Now, how, how, what has changed between you when you first started to now, like what, what things did you try that didn’t work? That if anyone has else’s gonna create their own, you know, anti blog or, or in their school, what learning curves did you go through that might help somebody else?

CYNTHIA MILONE
I think that the, probably the biggest thing was not to put people in boxes like stop labeling kids. Like a bully is always a bully, a bystander’s always a bystander or victim is always a victim. That change can happen and as soon as they started to realize that the label doesn’t follow them, that there is a possibility for change. That was the buy-in and when we had eighth graders that realize that it’s, it’s more cool I guess to, to always be kind to other kids then. Then the rest of the students, seventh and sixth graders did the same.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
That’s awesome. And now when you were first starting it or you just the technicalities, are you hosting the blog on like a, a specific type blog website, like a WordPress or a medium.com or where’s the blog hosted?

CYNTHIA MILONE
We have, we used canvas as a tool, like a teaching tool for all our classes. So it’s, everyone in the school has access to it. So the principal, the social workers, you know, all, all the staff members as well as all the students.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Awesome. And so where can people find that blog?

CYNTHIA MILONE
They can either go to my web page, the school district’s webpage and look for my web page because what’s what is seen on the blag. They can also also see on my Twitter account as well.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Oh perfect. So I’ll go ahead and provide, provide a link to that. So anyone listening, I’ll provide a link below if you want to go ahead and check it out. Now moving on to one of your other rock star projects, cause you don’t just stop there. You guys created a book that’s on Amazon that was written by students and it’s called the, you are not invisible. Can you tell everyone a little bit about that?

CYNTHIA MILONE
Yes. So the kids wanted to do something more to make a difference, to be more impactful and to really stomp out bullying. And they just didn’t want it to happen in our school. They wanted to also help, you know, all people around, all kids around the world. They realize that in to make this more impactful is that we needed to look at, or actually write stories in the perspective of the bully, the bystander and the victim, and give everyone the chance to change. And also let people know that there’s hope that the bystander can become the upstander, that the victim can become a Victor and that the bully can become a promoter and a protector. So, you know, I’ll stories, I even wrote a story that I myself, if I was being honest, that I am a bully. I, it’s not that I harass somebody else, but I had, you know, every time, and I’m looking at the reflection in my mirror, I would say that I’m too skinny or I’m too fat, or I don’t like this outfit on me. So it, you know, so people learn and they get a more of, of, you know, have an idea of what, you know, bullying is.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
And so all the stories that were submitted don’t, did you guys include all of them that were submitted by the students or did you, how’d you guys edit it and go from there?

CYNTHIA MILONE
Well, I realize that writing is very difficult. It doesn’t take a first draft. It takes like 15 giraffes or whatever to finally make it perfect. So not all stories made it, but the ones that you know, the student leaders and I had picked are the ones that we had to at least spend times. Like I would say like a whole month before we actually sent it off to the publishing company. So it took like it took, I would say almost like six or seven months to really come up with the book. We want it [inaudible].

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Wow. And did you guys edit it? Did you use obviously self-published or did you use, what service did you use for the self publishing

CYNTHIA MILONE
a lulu.com

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Oh, and how has that experience or feedback or things that you would, anyone else that’s looking to do something similar that you would suggest?

CYNTHIA MILONE
Oh yeah, I would definitely, lulu.com was, they were very good about helping us figure out how to set up the book. They helped us with the front cover. I think like the biggest problem are that I came across was trying to put our manuscript into a six by nine. Like every picture that we put in, like the head was cut off or like the bottom of the story was missing and they were able to like fix all those, all those headaches that we had.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Now, was there an upfront cost for that?

CYNTHIA MILONE
Yes, I believe all in all, like I think it costs, it costs me $1,000 and it was well worth it because I, I could not figure out how to do it on my own.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Awesome. Very, and then now, now, now, now it’s able to, it’s, it’s for sale on Amazon, correct? Correct. And this is w this is a print on demand, which means you didn’t have to buy, you know, 200 copies of the book. Right. That’s awesome. And, and how did the students feel to see their, their work published?

CYNTHIA MILONE
You know, we wrote at during their celebration speech I had made a nother like little booklet and we had our sixth grade student leaders interview all the authors cause I have 27 student authors and they interviewed all the authors and ask them two questions, how does it feel to be a published author and how does it feel to see your writing and knowing that someone is going to see it and read it and all of them. And I don’t think there was there like it’s really cool to be a published author and it would be nice when we get to the college applications and applying for jobs to say that we were published authors at age 13 age 14 he goes, but most of them, if not all of them said that they were so excited even if it helped one person by reading their stories.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Wow. That is, that’s awesome. And I mean I remember when I first got my first book published and just having it in hand makes it, it’s a, it’s a good feeling. And, and you know, if I would’ve had that in middle school and I’m sure it also lets them know that you know that you can, you can really strive in it and nowadays is nays with the technology if they want to write a or a book, you know, it’s a lot easier from you know, from when I was in middle school and which is, which is awesome. Now who did the cover for the book? Is that something that Lou did or did?

CYNTHIA MILONE
Yes. Design. We had a bunch of students, student leaders that design the front cover the way they wanted it. But Lulu then took their ideas and put it all together for us. And so they had a special design team and they, they put that together for us.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Oh perfect. That’s, that makes it very seamless. And things for you, for your school. Now, how do all of this, so from your blog to the Twitter account to the book, what, what are you working on next?

CYNTHIA MILONE
Well, I, I am thinking about next year, well we’re going to be working with the thing. Kindness. I have to say that the kids really enjoyed when we donated like over 6,000 shoes to the orphanages in Guana. They want to do something like that similar to each month. And they from the book, like we’re not receiving any money from the book, we are sending all of it to the Anthony Rizzo foundation and you know, they’re the ones that help out all cancer patients and families. And so we, we’ve been working with children’s Memorial hospital downtown and we’ve been sending them, like we did a whole Valentine’s cards, sent them to all the cancer patients. We made kudos boxes. So like if they finished it up, you know, chemotherapy treatments, they were able to get a prize out of the box. So just doing different things like that. The kids really get into it and they just love making a difference. So

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
you know what, what I love about this is a lot of people, they think that the acts of kindness need to be, I call them like chore torque, chore acts like let’s clean up the river, let’s pick up trash. But you’re, you’re doing, you know, when I talked to when I did get my, you know, adult presentations on the steps to create a kindness movement, you’re, you’re checking off all the boxes. And you know, I usually, the steps that I usually tell people is you find something that lights someone’s heart on fire. If I find something that the students are on that they emotionally care about, because if they, if they’re emotionally vested, then they are forced to be reckoned with in it’s setting a big goal. Everyone loved like for your school, originally it was with the shoes and then it’s, you know, it’s setting the big goal and then at the same point it’s bringing it full circle.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
It’s letting them see the impact that they made. And for you, they’re able to literally see everything come full circle on several different scales on one with seeing their, their stuff posted on a blog, on Twitter, then into a book form and then taking it to the next level is, is, yeah, they collected a bunch of shoes. Now that’s being hyperlocalized like what can they do within other areas? You know, we always say that the, the shoes are just the vehicle for a bigger, bigger inspiration. What the shoes do and the impact that they have is awesome. But where the real inspiration is in empowering the students that they have the capacity to change other people’s lives. And you’re taking that to another level and instilling that in students and some of their most vulnerable stages in life, which is in middle school, it’s where they’re, they’re kind of outside the elementary school around.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
They want to feel older, they’re introduced to social media, they start understanding the news and, and all the negativity that surrounds us in today’s society. But yet you’re shining a light of hope that yeah, there’s a lot of problems around, but everyone, despite your circumstances, can still make a difference in the world. So with that, I want to say thank you and I’m excited to see what you’re going to accomplish next year. Your your school’s rockstar status. What I’d like to do is, is below as I’m gonna, I’ll also put a link to the Anthony Rizzo foundation cause I love promoting other organizations that are doing amazing things. So if anyone’s listening to, I would also like to make a donation or I suggest you buy a copy of the book because that’s another way that you’re, you’re supporting the organization and check out the blog and then, and people can interact with you directly on Twitter as well, correct? Correct. Awesome. So I will, I’ll link that below. So if there’s any other school, school volunteers, administrators, teachers, parents that kind of want to look at what Cynthia’s doing, it’s, it’s amazing. And if you want to reach out to her on Twitter, go ahead and reach out. And anything else that you would like to add? Any other feedback for any other parents or volunteers or our teachers? Listen,

CYNTHIA MILONE
I would just like to go out and say that it doesn’t mean that, you know, you’re not too old, you’re not too young. You can all make a difference. And it does just one small act of kindness is it can change the world. And that’s why, that’s where we all need to begin and do it together.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Ah, well thank you so much for everything and then, and I’m looking forward to, to next school year and to seeing what you do and that, thank you so much for jumping on the call and offering your insight for everyone to hear.

CYNTHIA MILONE
All right. Thank you so much.