[princessbelle]

I feel it is important to do anything we can to help our youth. Especially with all of the suicides and bullying that our youth are facing.

In my day, most of us were in the closet, and we would have never dreamed of being "out".

Today, as adults and a changing (hopefully) society, we encourage our youth to be strong and speak out and be yourself. However this can be dangerous mentally and physically for some of them.

I truly would love to help in some way.

A while back, when we had the "wear purple" to support our gay youth day, I wore a purple shirt, pony tail holder and i tied a purple bandana around my wrist and went to the mall and just walked around. I felt sorta silly not knowing what to do or how to help someone.

I will never forget this group of early teenagers talking about 10 feet from me. I was looking at them thinking "does someone need help". I didn't know what to do and was alone without a vision of what i was actually doing.

There was a boy in that group that spotted me and walked around the entire group of teens and smiled big toward me and nodded. I KNOW he knew i was there to help if needed. I KNOW he appreciated that small offering of hope and love and acceptance.

It's something i'll never forget. It is also a feeling i want to have again.

Great thread.