Sayville Sophomore Carmella Perrone Combats Cyberbullying

For her “action plan” to combat cyberbullying, Carmella Perrone, a Sophomore at Sayville High School, won Second Place in the annual scholarship contest awarded by the Long Island Coalition Against Bullying. First- and Third-Places winners were two Seniors from West Babylon and Bellmore, respectively.

LICAB is a non-profit organization whose mission is to “emphasize the importance of bully-free communities on Long Island through education, increased awareness and therapeutic outlets.” The competition for the LICAB Scholarship required each candidate to outline an effective, scalable and goal-oriented strategy that could be used to combat cyberbullying in Long Island communities.

Although Carmella’s motivation stemmed from her own personal experience as a target of cyberbullying, her application for the scholarship described a plan—already in practice during the Spring semester—that she had co-created with Sayville Student Assistance Counselor Ms. Kahan to thwart bullying at Sayville High School.  

Ms. Kahan explained that Carmella has been an essential component of a push-in lessons conducted the health classes. “She shares her story as part of a lesson on bullying including what we can to do to be Upstanders. She plans to finish up with this year’s semester and begin again in the fall to reach as many of her peers as possible with this important message.”

All three winners LICAB contest winners who received scholarships for their action plans ( First Place: $1,000.00, Second Place: $700.00,  and  Third Place: $300.00) will be working together on a project for LICAB. As for winning Second Place, Carmella said “I am very grateful to be a winner and a part of LICAB; a very big thank you to Ms. Kahan for being my biggest supporter and helping to guide me in the right direction. You helped me take a very bad situation and turn it into something great. Tonight I met some really amazing girls and I'm excited to work alongside them to end this big issue.”

Congratulations, Carmella, both for your Upstanding courage and for winning Second Place.

  #letsendthiscyberbullyingtogether”.