A fourth-grader was bullied for wearing a handmade University of Tennessee shirt, an orange t-shirt pinned with a hand-drawn “U.T.” label. The elementary student, who wore the shirt to a College Colors Day at Altamonte Elementary School in Florida to represent their favourite university, returned to Laura Snyder’s classroom in tears. Snyder shared this heartbreaking event on Facebook, as Buzzfeed detailed:
"He was DEVASTATED. I know kids can be cruel, I am aware that it’s not the fanciest sign, BUT this kid used the resources he had available to him to participate in a spirit day."
Snyder wrote that she was going to buy her student an official UT shirt, and ended the post by asking if any of her Facebook friends had any connections to the school so she could "make it a little extra special for him."
The university store's official Twitter account shared a picture of the pack's contents Thursday afternoon, which included jerseys, hats, notes from school officials, and a football signed by head coach Jeremy Pruitt for the student himself, along with items like notebooks, pens, and water bottles for Snyder's entire class.
The university announced Friday that they would be making the student's hand-drawn design into an official T-shirt and donating a portion of the proceeds to an anti-bullying foundation.
image credit: via Buzzfeed