(OCEAN VIEW, Del.)- Youth in all 50 states participated in a campaign on Wednesday "Spread the Word to End the Word."
Schools, communities and advocates encouraged everyone to pledge to stop the use of the R-word.
Nearly 80 Delaware preschool, elementary, middle and high schools, along with the University of Delaware and the Del Tech Owens and Terry campuses, participated.
The goal: To ask people to stop and think about their hurtful and disparaging use of all forms of the word "retard," and take a pledge to respect everyone.
"I try to be as respectful as I can to everyone because it doesn't matter what they look like because you should always respect people with words and kindness," said Dominque Delaney a Lord Baltimore student.
Linda Brown, a special education at teacher at Lord Baltimore spear headed the campaign at her school:
"To bring awareness to that particular word and how offensive it is. We talk about how saying mean things really will hurt somebodies feelings and you can say you're sorry but that doesn't really take away what you said in the first place."
Adam Baker, another Lord Baltimore student said he learned to keep all his bad thoughts to himself "I call it my storage que. I put it in my storage que and I try to hold it in until I get back to my house and can take it out on my pillow."
The hallways throughout Lord Baltimore arelined with respect posters and projects.