Ask Karen Klein if she thinks she'll get the $600,000 (and counting) pledged to her and she's skeptical. Previous to being a bus monitor at a salary of $15K/year she was a bus driver in the Rochester, N.Y. suburb of Greece.

Last week as she sat in the back of the school bus doing her job, a group of students, thought to be of middle school age, bullied, insulted and mercilessly taunted her to tears for over 10 minutes. The captured video was posted on YouTube (available below) and went viral.

BULLY FOR HER

A Toronto man began a campaign to raise $5000 for her for a vacation, just so she could get away and perhaps restore her faith in mankind. Pledges so far are over 10 times that amount.

As for the students, they have apologized in various forms and so have their parents, which is (at least) the right thing to do. We can only hope that valuable lessons can be learned.

What is frighteningly mysterious is that some of the students have received over 1000 death threats since the incident which really exposes the menacing “eye-for-an-eye” mentality. I mean if you are against bullying, how do you plan to solve it by threatening a 12 year old with his life? Perhaps we have been too endoctrinated by the movies where the bully really gets his in the end, and we cheer.

I am not against punishment but I hope at some point the crazies who utter death threats realize that this only makes matters worse. If Karen does get the money my recommendation would be to set up some sort of foundation. She could pay herself a reasonable salary as head, and use the money to make anti-bullying videos (starting with her own), print pamphlets, travel and talk to youth, hold town hall meetings, arrange a screening of the Bully movie and things of that nature.

Perhaps at age 68 she has been given an opportunity to not only serve her community, but to really make a difference. LEAVE COMMENTS.

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(Below the original video, is an interview video also. Scroll down.)