If you’ve looked around the community lately, you may have seen a lot of orange – the fall leaves, decorative pumpkins, Halloween decorations – but on Wednesday, the color held a different meaning as schools across the country wore orange to celebrate “Unity Day.”
“Unity Day is an acknowledgement of the importance of kindness, acceptance and inclusion, so we’re all wearing orange today, the children, the staff, just as a way to bring attention to those concepts,” said Dr. Maureen Barber-Carey, Executive Vice President at the Barber National Institute.
The Barber National Institute is a local nonprofit that provides education and support to children and adults with intellectual disabilities, and Barber-Carey said they had activities planned throughout their classrooms to drive the point that “we’re all different, and it’s okay to be different.”
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One educator at the Barber Institute teaches in the school’s “Pre-K Counts” program, which is designed to help children experiencing factors that may impact their kindergarten readiness. She said it’s never too soon to start teaching kindness and inclusion, both in and out of the classroom…