Lizzie Sider will be honored as a HateBraker Hero at the second annual HateBraker Heroes Awards on Monday, May 19 at the Hilton Frontenac in St. Louis, Missouri. During the ceremony, Sider will be the featured entertainer where she will perform her original song, “Butterfly,” which she co-wrote about her own experiences of being teased, ridiculed, and excluded by other children and how she overcame the pain.
Lizzie, who has family ties to St. Louis, is being honored for her work in helping others to transcend the horrors of being bullied, and for her own moral courage to have become a leader and a role model, in the quest to raise awareness of, and to help stop bullying. In her efforts to promote bullying prevention, Lizzie has toured schools in California and Florida to present assemblies in which she shares her own personal stories of teasing with students. It is during these assemblies that Lizzie imparts her message that above all else “Nobody has the power to ruin your day!” Starting April 9, the tour continued into Texas schools. At the end of the 2013 – 2014 school year, Lizzie will have met with nearly 100,000 students.
Says Susan Balk, Founding Director of HateBrakers: “Lizzie mustered the courage to rise above bullying and tell her story to the world. Whenever a room full of children hear her sing “Butterfly,” about how she stopped hiding and learned to fly, they understand that they can do it too. She’s a powerhouse of healing, and she’s not even old enough to drive!”