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After handing out the first Bowling Against Bullying RISE UP! Scholarship this year, Bowling Against Bullying founder and Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office School Resource Officer Shaun Mudd wants to create a second one.
At Saturday’s Bowling Against Bullying at The Bowling Alley in Warsaw, Mudd said, “We started a scholarship. We gave away our first scholarship back in the spring to a Warsaw student. That was exciting. That was cool.”
He said he would like to be able to give two scholarships through the Kosciusko County Community Foundation, which would require him to raise another $25,000. He thought there was about $34,000 in the fund.
“Initially, when I signed that paperwork with the foundation, I was thinking, ‘Man, $25,000 is a bunch of money.’ But, as we went on, the first $5,000 came from someone from the sheriff’s office. And then a buddy of mine shook down the employees and there was another $5,000. Money just started coming in,” Mudd recalled. “I remember I got a notice because the Foundation will send you updates. One said $16,000 and another said $26,000, so I called (the foundation) and talked to Tami Murphy.”
She confirmed to him the scholarship fund had $26,000 in it at that time.
“I was like, ‘What!?’ When I signed the paperwork initially, I was thinking we could have a dinner. I had a committee already put together for a dinner fundraiser. And the money just came in. Warsaw has just been awesome,” Mudd stated.
Bowling Against Bullying began when, in 2017, Mudd found out about a student who was being bullied at a local school. Touched by the student’s story, he wanted to do something special for him and other bullied students. It was supposed to have been a one-time thing when he and a friend gathered door prizes and paid for food and lanes. It became an annual event and a nonprofit.
Saturday’s free event featured free pizza, drinks and a raffle with prizes that included everything from toys to bicycles.
Mudd said bullying affects everybody.
“I made a talk at the Breakfast Optimists back in February or March, somewhere around there, and after I got I had guys - 60-year-old guys - come up to me and say they were bullied in high school. They remember the name of the person. They’re older guys and it still affects them to this day,” he said. “So, I think bullying is something that just affects everybody and it doesn’t have to do with a finance level, skin color, race, religion or creed. It’s just everybody.”
Aaron Ball, co-founder of Rio’s Rainbow, Elkhart, with his wife Niki, and Lani Kieft, from Parent Coalition for Child Safety and Wellness, also had a table again this year at Bowling Against Bullying and spoke briefly about their organizations.
“We founded Rio’s Rainbow in 2022 after our daughter died by suicide from the extensive bullying she received at her middle school,” Aaron Ball said. “This is our second year at this event, and I’ve got to tell you, I’m super grateful to Shaun and his family for inviting us. Rio’s Rainbow is a lot about direct impact type of events where you can instantly see that you made a difference and you’re helping children and providing safe spaces for them.”
He said as they try to grow their group and extend out to different counties, collaborations are “super, super important.”
When they got started, he said there was just a handful of them. Since then, “We’ve added a ton of different organizations, a ton of different groups and are really working on trying to collaborate with other counties.”
While they started in Elkhart County, Ball said the bullying problem is not exclusive to there, so the more counties they reach in the state and in the country, the better.
“We really, really want to try to get our voice to be as loud as possible to make child safety the number one priority in the state of Indiana. I’m positive there’s not anybody in this room that has not had any - or at least one experience - with bullying. It’s everywhere. Everybody has a story. Our main goal is to make sure that everybody else’s story is not me and Niki’s story. It does not have to end that way, and everything that we will do going forward will speak to that,” he stated.
Lani Kieft, with Parent Coalition for Child Safety and Wellness, said they work very closely with Rio’s Rainbow.
“We are a grassroots organization of people who have been affected by bullying in many ways. We were brought to action by the loss of Rio and since then, in the years that followed, we have uncovered that it is an all too common an occurrence with kids in schools. It’s not unique to any school district, it is a systemic problem with our culture,” she said.
The way that the problem can be fixed, she continued, is through events like Bowling Against Bullying that draws attention and brings awareness to bullying.
She pointed out a few staggering facts from the Indiana Department of Child Services’ report, including 26% of students do not feel safe in schools.
“That is one in four. That is way too many children who do not feel safe. They also report that one in three students in grades sixth through 12th report feeling hopeless and sadness for more than two weeks in a row. This is disproportionate for our girls where 50% of our girls in ages 10 to 18 are feeling hopeless, and one in four of our girls has seriously considered suicide. So this is important that we’re having this conversation,” she stated.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for children ages 10 to 24, she also pointed out.
“So, those are some staggering things and that really can just kind of hit us. But I want you to know that there is hope and this is the kind of thing we need happening everywhere,” Kieft said.
The Parent Coalition is trying to get the state of Indiana to institute a state emergency for child mental health, she said. “All it is, is a signature so that the more people they see in Indiana who are wanting this, then we can get these wraparound services to protect our kids.” She encouraged everyone to sign their change.org petition.
Find more about Rio’s Rainbow at https://riosrainbow.org; and about Bowling Against Bullying at https://bowlingagainstbullying.com or visit their social media pages. Information on Parent Coalition for Child Safety and Wellness can be found on their Facebook page.
Bowling Against Bullying’s 2026 event is scheduled for noon Aug. 1, 2026.
