Anti-bully campaign in Quinte honours friend

BELLEVILLE, Ont. (31/01/2012): Casey Telford, post graduate public relations student from Loyalist College in Belleville, bravely deliveries her inspiration message about the painful experience at the hands of bullies and her project, The Kris Snary Project, in the loving memory of Christopher Edward Snary. Telford tells her story using paper notes in a video. Photo by Tristan Kong.

By Tristan Kong

It’s been two months since 23-year-old Casey Telford released her inspirational video, and with 1,000 views so far, the video is starting to gain momentum.

Telford, a post-graduation public relations student from Loyalist College, video shares the painful experience at the hands of bullies. Her project, The Kris Snary Project, in the loving memory of Christopher “Kristofur” Edward Snary, reached the community of Loyalist College and Quinte area.

The Kris Snary Project was founded in May 2011 by Telford after her friend, Christoper  Snary aka Kris, committed suicide. Telford said no one knows the exact reason why it happened, but suspect that he probably was bullied that he had endured so much over his sexuality mostly.

“Most of us here couldn’t make it to the memorial, because of transportation, money or anything else or just time,” Telford said. “We just kind of put something together where everybody here could be in the same room together and be there for each other…we wanted it to be more of a positive event than a sad, mourning event because Kris was such a happy person.”

Some bands had volunteered to play a show for The Kris Snary Project last summer because Kris was very musical. The money from the concert was used by Telford to start a bursary in Kris’s name for Loyalist College.

It took a long time for Telford to share her own experience and it created a connection. It showed that although their issues were similar, they came to different outcomes.

She made the video in her class last December.

“I literally just set up my MacBook, wrote out everything it was I wanted to say. Everything was basically on impulse,” Telford said. “Whatever I wrote down I said and I just did it right there in one take.

Telford released it on YouTube within a couple of minutes. Her video can be seen on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4e-06L5ecI

That night, Telford was overwhelmed when she got text messages from people saying they watched it and had been affected by it. They even shared it with other people

“I had people approaching me in the hallway, telling me ‘I saw your video, that it was so touching. I cried…I knew Chris… I know you through somebody else’ People somehow found a way to connect with it,” Telford said. “I was not expecting and it was shared so many time on Facebook, it was unbelievable.

Chris Barnim, president of student government for Loyalist College, said that he has known Telford for almost a year, and that she is a very kind hearted person, inspirational and a great friend.

“It was very emotional. She has sent a great message in the video,” Barnim said. “It made me want to look into the anti-bullying cause even further.”

Loyalist College’s respect committee messaged Telford for her permission to post her video because they thought it was a good fit for the project that they had been working on.

Dave Templar, who works as a residence coordinator at Loyalist College and one of the respect committee members, is impressed with Telford’s courage to speak out about her experience.

“She seems like a fairly mature well-rounded person who has had some challenges herself,” Templar said. “She’s been here for a few years and clearly has had some success and enjoys it here.”

After receiving many positive responses, more people joined The Kris Snary Project‘s Facebook page and her video on Youtube has reached over 1,000 viewers after less than a month.

Telford was invited as a community spotlight and her video was shown at the film event called “Reelout” in Kingston last weekend. She spoke for two or three minutes about her own story.

Telford said there are people in the community who are very open to working together and collaborating.  “It’s actually shocking the response our efforts get.” Telford said.

*Correction Feb. 4, 2012: the family asked the location of the death be removed. Out of respect, QNet News has agreed.