Anti-bullying week starts 12/15

In honor of anti-bullying week, next friday (12/16) is Wear Star Wars, Share Star Wars. This article from last year really explains this much better than I ever could, but the idea is to wear a Star Wars shirt (or anything else to declare your geekdom) in honor of Katie, a first grader who was bullied because she was a girl with a Star Wars water bottle the boys in her class made fun of her for. When the article hit the internet, fellow geeks, sympathetic readers and industry professionals poured out their love and support for a girl who was only trying to proudly show off who she was; a fan of Star Wars.

As one who dresses up at cons, plays lots of video games, and enjoys mountains of sci-fi, I'll at the very least participate in the Share Star Wars portion of next Friday (since I don't have any SW shirts in my wardrobe.) The idea is that you take a new, unwrapped sci-fi toy and donate it to a program that gives to needy children. I happen to have three lightsabers.

Nice, new, unopened, and waiting for a young Jedi to light them up and wave them around at their foes (even though they're Vader's, shhhh...) But wait, this is usually seen as a "boy's toy", isn't it? Same with any other sci-fi toys, girls usually get stuck with the dolls, art supplies, and dress up toys. Why can't they play with the monster trucks or Nerf guns? For that matter, why can't the boys pick out the My Little Ponies? So for at least the 16th, we need to do something about that.

There we go. Did y'all catch that? We need to put a note on the toy expressing that the toy should be available to go to anyone.

I loved swords and Matchbox and had so many Ninja Turtles as well as my fair share of Ponies and tea sets. If my nieces are anything to judge by, there are so many girls who would LOVE for a chance to be a Jedi. Even the Clone Wars series has a young female Padawan in one of the lead parts. So for Christmas, since money is a bit tight for us this year, the girls are each getting a lightsaber donated in their name in addition to a small homemade gift. I think they'll think it's pretty cool that some kid who doesn't get Christmas will now get something cool to play with because of them.

Join the event on Facebook: Wear Star Wars, Share Star Wars

P.S. Computer still borked, using the work computer for this post. Hopefully I'll make it rise from the dead this weekend.