DUBLIN, Ohio — Lucy McGary acted because others couldn’t.
“I want people to understand that it’s OK to be yourself and it’s OK to be different,” she said.
She’s 17 years old. With her mother’s permission she talked with 10TV.
McGary is a senior at Dublin Scioto High School. A couple of weeks ago when a picture of the school’s staff made its rounds on social media showing them wearing shirts that had sayings on it including “Black Lives Matter,” “Love is Love” and “No Human is Illegal,” McGary took that personally.
“To see a teacher wear that and to know that you’re not another number, another stereotype…just another person to know that you matter is insanely impactful,” McGary said.
At a school board meeting Superintendent Dr. Todd Hoadley said while he applauded the shirts, teachers could not wear them because some thought the shirts were too political. He did say it was OK for the students to wear them.
It caused an uproar, McGary says, for staff, teachers and students.
“It was this whole big thing,” she said. “Between everyone.”
Instead of complaining, she acted. McGary created her own shirt.
“What happened to those teachers wasn’t right,” she said.
The blueprint of her shirt came from the same shirt the staff wore. On the bottom of hers is the saying “Is not political, it is empathetic.” The shirt, originally, was for her. Then, she posted it to Instagram.
“And then, like, within the next hour it was blowing up,” she said.
In a little more than two weeks, she’s sold almost 400 shirts. At $19 a pop, that’s $7,600. Every dollar goes to Dublin Bridges, she says, which is an organization McGary volunteers with that helps families that have been struggling during the pandemic.
All of this, she says, is because of a shirt with deeper significance threaded into the fabric.
“Just take a step back and think about if you were one of these people that falls into that description,” McGary said of the shirts. “How much hardship you go through. How much heartache you go through and how much trauma you go through just for being yourself.”
She’s doing what she’s doing because others couldn’t. And, because she says, it’s right.