Matthew Kaplan

Grade 8, Martinsville, Indiana

"Community service is like planting seeds of compassion."

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Project: Be ONE Project

Every school has at least one bully roaming the hallways. Maybe it’s someone who pushes people around, shoves them into lockers, or knocks them down. Maybe it’s someone who treats people badly, calls them names, or tells lies about them. Or maybe it’s someone who uses the anonymity of social media to make fun of or harass others.

Online bullying—known as cyberbullying—is no less harmful, disturbing, or frightening to its victims than physical bullying. So when Matthew Kaplan’s younger brother Josh became a target of cyberbullying, Matthew did what any older brother would—he stepped in to stop it. But instead of fighting his brother’s battles or bullying the bullies, Matthew set out to end bullying altogether.

By doing so, Matthew became part of a nationwide effort by local and state governments, community organizations, and school systems to end bullying. While those efforts were admirable, Matthew wanted to find a way to confront and defeat the bullying problem more quickly. Realizing that a lot of anti-bullying projects were aimed at high school students, Matthew knew that children start bullying others, including his brother, earlier than that.

That was the basis for Matthew’s Be ONE Project. ONE stands for “Open to New Experiences.” Initially, Matthew just wanted to make a difference at his middle school, where he was an 8th-grader. His project became so successful, though, that it became part of his school’s mandatory curriculum. Soon Matthew had a waiting list of schools wanting him to help them tackle the issue of bullying.

However, for Matthew, the success of his project never depended on how many schools signed up to participate. Instead, it was how the Be ONE Project affected the lives of students.

By way of an example, Matthew recalled the day he had spoken at one school. At the end of the program, a student stepped up to the microphone and shared that he had had trouble making friends since Kindergarten. He hoped that things would change after the program and that his peers would stop making fun of him.

The next six students who came up to the microphone apologized for bullying their classmate. When Matthew checked in with the students’ teacher later, he found that the bullying had ended and the student who had been its target was finally happy in school. Having received the Power of Children Award, Matthew continued looking for opportunities to expand the Be ONE Project. Ideally, he wanted to expand nationwide and to develop a “curriculum in a box” so that schools could use the program easily. He planned to use the Power of Children Award grant to help reach the large list of schools on his waiting list.

As he continued to develop the Be ONE Project, Matthew also looked to the future and how he might continue to make a difference in the lives of others. As he applied to various colleges, he looked for ones that would give him a chance to pursue a career in social advocacy through majors such as public policy or nonprofit management. Eventually, he hoped to get a master’s degree in public policy and a law degree.

Remembering how his project began, Matthew said, “I had no special knowledge or particular skills when I started the Be ONE Project. I just saw a problem that I thought I might be able to solve. I had an idea, and I had the courage and conviction to run with it.” That’s what the Power of Children Awards honor.

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