A 16-year old high school student created an App that helps new kids in school connect with other kids; helping them find a lunch buddy to sit with during lunchtime.

I saw this great article in Huffington Post that I think is a game changer for a lot of kids out there who are heading into a new school or are maybe moving away from a certain group of kids they no longer hang out with.

This new app makes finding friends in the school cafeteria a lot easier.  It's called  “Sit With Us” and it helps kids who find it hard to locate kids who would welcome them at their lunch table.  The app allows students to designate themselves as “ambassadors,” and invite others to join them.  Ambassadors can then post “open lunch” events, which signal to anyone seeking company that they’re invited to join the ambassadors’ table.  How great is this?!

Natalie Hampton from Sherman Oaks, California created the app; Sit With Us and she launched it only a couple of weeks ago for the start of the 2016-17 school year.  She says she was inspired to create the app after she ate alone her entire seventh grade year, she told LA Daily News. Natalie said that sitting alone at lunch made her feel vulnerable and a target for bullying.

She is a junior now and at a different High School where she is doing great and is enjoying her social life.  She says her "memories of sitting alone and being bullied still haunt her, especially since she knows her experience isn’t an isolated one."

Natalie feels strongly that her new app will help prevent kids from feeling publicly rejected and feeling that they are outcasts by their schoolmates.

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The Sit With Us app is available for download in the App Store.  I just did it myself and put New Bedford High School in the school locator section. It took less than 30 seconds to do! Spread the word about this thoughtful new app to anyone you feel could use a friendly face at school :)

 

 

 

 

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