Poff family hosts first Bullying Awareness Event

Roanoke (WSLS)--  A senator is joining in a mother's fight to help stop bullying in schools.

The family of Max Poff held a bullying awareness event Saturday.

Max's mother believes he took his own life because he was bullied at school.

Family and friends were passing out anti bullying fliers to anyone who would accept them.

According to bullypolicedot.org in the state of Virginia there are about 210,000 kids who are bullied.

Max's mother says she's going to spread the message as long as she's able. Even Max's closest friends and family came out on a Saturday morning to spread the message to stop bullying.

"Let people realize what's its like to lose somebody and how it feels when they're gone you know how bad it is and how its like to not have someone," Tristan Aldrich, Max's friend said.

According to he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people resulting in about 4,500 deaths per year. A study in Britain found that half of suicides were because of bullying.

"I just don't want nobody to go through what max went through or what any parent to go through what me and his father went through," Diana Poff, Max's mother said.

Poff is working with Senator John Edwards to get future legislation passed to actively prevent bullying at schools. The senator recently passed that calls student administrators to actively prevent bullying in schools. The Model Police to Address Bullying in Virginia's School's it went into affect July 1st. It provides information to school leaders to help create a plan to prevent bullying, procedures to report bullying and how to investigate and intervene when bullying occurs.

"If you know bullying is happening speak up if you see something say something people need to be aware that words do hurt," Senator Edwards said.

 

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