All Orono schools came together the week of October 24th to unite as one. In recognition of anti-bullying, Orono had a week full of celebrations in order to show and give support of unity week.

Unity week is devoted to everyone coming together and sharing their differences. Even though there are a tremendous amount of reasons people are uniquely different, there are also reasons people are similar and during this week people use that reason to celebrate one another.

“It’s inspiring to see the whole school come together to promote the goal of inclusion.” senior Anna Alworth said.

In order to get the entire school involved, each day of the week was a new dress up day; Monday people came in pajamas, Tuesday people wore orange to support anti-bullying, Wednesday was come as you are, Thursday people came in blue jeans & tie-dye shirts, and Friday people dressed up in spartan spirit.

The week also included flash mobs, short announcements, and posters hung around the school to show support for the movement. Orono is setting an example of guidelines that other schools and communities can choose to take action in and apply to themselves. The goal behind this nationwide movement is to ‘choose to include’, a goal which over the past few years Orono has been exceeding.

The biggest support of unity week at Orono is their most popular club, Unified. Unified is a club where people with and without intellectual disabilities have the opportunity to come together and unite. The club cherishes this week, as well as the rest of the school, for its cause and uses the movement as a way to open the door for new members to join their club.

“Even though we only have one week dedicated to anti-bullying, at Orono it feels like every week is for anti-bullying. Our school chooses to include everyday and it is something that is so unique about Orono,” senior Ellen Kittridge said.

Although unity week came to an end October 26th, the overarching idea was to spread awareness and have students as well as teachers and staff keep it current in schools. Orono is a school full of character and is only growing in a positive way towards coming together as one.