An 8-year-old San Bruno boy was recently honored by the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park for a poster he created to promote anti-bullying.
Russell Ong, a third grader at Portola Elementary, won the Imagine Peace contest for the Junior Giants program. Russell plays on the Cougars team for the San Bruno league.
For the contest, kids in the program were asked to design a poster that showed their visions for what the world would be like if it was free of bullying.
Russell designed a colorful poster that was based on the scoreboard at AT&T Park. On the top of the scoreboard were four penants, which represented the four character traits that the Junior Giants promote: confidence, integrity, leadership and teamwork.
On the screen were Russell and some of his friends. That was surrounded by peace and Giants symbols and messages that Russell came up with to promote anti-bullying: "Let's All Agree to Be Bully Free," "Buddies Not Bullies," and more.
"It took me about two hours to draw," Russell said.
Russell said his inspiration for the poster came from real experience. He had to deal with a bully for three years at school, he said. The bullying finally stopped after he told his teacher and principal.
For being the winner out of all the Junior Giants players in the state, Russell got to join other kids on the Giants baseball field on Sept. 9 before the game for a special "Strike Out Violence" ceremony (see video). His name was announced to the crowd and his poster was shown on the jumbotron for all to see.
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