East End Students Celebrate P.S. I Love You Day

Purple-clad students scrawled uplifting messages across Hamptons and North Fork schools in an anti-bullying and suicide prevention effort called P.S. I Love You Day, held annually on the second Friday in February.

Participants included students at Riverhead High School, Westhampton Beach High School, Hampton Bays Middle School, Pierson Middle School in Sag Harbor, East Quogue Elementary School and Southampton elementary and intermediate schools, among others.

“Everyone is going through their own battles, both internally and externally — and sometimes, those battles go unnoticed,” says Jennifer Boese, a Riverhead High School guidance counselor who founded Chalk the Walk, a companion effort in which students write positive notes in chalk on school sidewalks. “I tell my kids every morning that I love them, to make good choices and to be kind, even when it is hard. P.S. I Love You Day resonates with this goal, and I have enjoyed raising additional mental health awareness and helping launch this school-wide initiative.”

West Islip sisters Brooke and Jaimie DiPalma founded P.S. I Love You Day in 2010 after their father, Joseph, died by suicide. The initiative has since spread to schools nationwide. Efforts vary from school to school.

“Together they worked to foster a positive environment and instill hope for those affected by mental illness,” says Pierson Middle School Assistant Principal Stacy Van Duzer.

At Westhampton Beach High School, Youth to Youth Club engaged in random acts of kindness. They made bracelets with Best Buddies club members and students took part in a Unified Volleyball tournament.

At Southampton Elementary School, members of the Rotary Club brought positivity into the community by hanging purple kindness messages in store windows.

At Hampton Bays Middle School, students wrote positive messages on Post-it notes, created displays in their hallways and formed a large heart for a group photo in the school’s gym.

At East Quogue Elementary School, students and faculty engaged in activities that demonstrated how kindness can be shown.

“We can all use more positive days and reasons to smile,” says Boese, of Riverhead. “We look forward to further expanding this initiative throughout the district each year.”