
TBE students get into the beat. SUBMITTED photoS
noelle@coastalbreezenews.com
Meet Lizzie Sider, a pretty, confident 15-year-old country music singing sensation. She co-wrote her 2012 debut single, “Butterfly,” and has opened for country music stars Gloriana, Jamie O’Neal and Aaron Tippin. She has paid visits to “The Queen Latifah Show,” “Access Hollywood” and Nashville’s “Crook & Chase.”
One look at the South Florida native smiling, dancing and clapping in the cafeteria at Tommie Barfield Elementary, though, does not reveal the pain she suffered as a young child when she was bullied and teased by her classmates.
“When I was in elementary school, I was teased by the other kids,” Sider

Sider sings from the heart.
It was her father, though, that turned those experiences into a mission for Sider when he told her “nobody has the power to ruin your day.” Now, Sider is on a 250-school anti-bullying campaign through California, Texas and Florida. Her program

TBE students loved the Q & A session with Sider.
“We decide what is going to happen, not other people,” Sider noted.
To prove her point, Sider asked everyone in the cafeteria — even adults — to close their eyes and to raise their hands if they had ever been bullied or teased. There was an audible gasp when all eyes opened and saw that more than half the people in the room had a hand raised. Sider also gave a long list of very successful and famous people who were bullied as kids,

Sider shares a smile with her audience.
It’s a message Sider included in “Butterfly,” which she sang for the TBE students:
“I used to hide and keep inside
Afraid to show the world who I was
In shades of gray, I’d spend my days
So invisible because
They’d always put me down
Yeah, I let ‘em keep me down
But look at me now, look at me now
Finally comin’ out In honor of Lizzie Sider’s song ‘Butterfly,’ TBE students decorated the stage with their own butterfly creations.
Gonna spread my wings, bright and colorful things
Let ‘em take me up and touch the sky
They thought they knew me plain and shy
But all along I was a Butterfly”
In addition to speaking out against bullying, Sider advocates for the Global Women’s Empowerment Network (GWEN), ImBullyFree.com, BullyVille.com, PACER Teens Against Bullying and is a Junior Board Member of The Alliance for Eating Disorders.
Ultimately, Sider wants to break the chain of bullying, and she encouraged kids to take action now. “Go talk to someone about your pain,” she urged. “There will always be people around us to help us and give us a support system.”
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