Published by CMA / CMA Close Up
May 14, 2014
Emerging Country artist Lizzie Sider will be honored as a HateBraker Hero at the second annual HateBraker Heroes Awards on Monday, May 19, at the Hilton Frontenac in St. Louis, Missouri. As the evening’s featured entertainer, Sider will perform “Butterfly,” which she co-wrote about her own experiences of being teased, ridiculed and excluded by other children and how she overcame the pain.
The 15-year-old performer is being honored for her work in helping others to transcend the horrors of being bullied, and for her own moral courage to have become a leader and a role model, in the quest to raise awareness of, and to help stop bullying. In her efforts to promote bullying prevention, Sider has toured schools in California and Florida to present assemblies in which she shares her own personal stories of teasing with students. It is during these assemblies that Lizzie imparts her message that above all else, “Nobody has the power to ruin your day!” Starting April 9, the tour continued into Texas schools. By the end of the 2013-2014 school year, she will have met with nearly 100,000 students.
“Lizzie mustered the courage to rise above bullying and tell her story to the world,” said Susan Balk, Founding Director, HateBrakers. “Whenever a roomful of children hear her sing ‘Butterfly,’ about how she stopped hiding and learned to fly, they understand that they can do it too. She’s a powerhouse of healing, and she’s not even old enough to drive!”
HateBrakers, a division of the non-profit New Conscience, Inc., promotes the leadership and heroism of individuals who aid in “Hitting the Brakes on Hate” to help others recover from violence, bullying, racism, revenge, scapegoating and other aggressive acts. In 2013, Peter Yarrow of the legendary music trio Peter, Paul and Mary was honored as a HateBraker Hero. To learn more about HateBrakers, visit http://www.hatebrakers.org/.
Sider, who splits her time between Boca Raton, Florida and Nashville, Tennessee, will perform at CMA Music Festival on Friday, June 7, at 1 PM on the Chevy Roadhouse Stage.