By Gretchen Althoff Snyder
Daniel Pellegrini, a 6th grader at Rye Middle School, didn’t expect a life-changing experience to arise from a bullying incident on the playground. Born and raised in Rye, Daniel, a quiet, sensitive and kind 11 year-old, had a run-in with some other boys one day after school. While Daniel told his mother Laura about the incident later that evening, she said “he kind of brushed it off, not making that big a deal of it.” Daniel was clearly affected by the incident, says Laura, but he was having a hard time explaining exactly how he was feeling.
Later that week, while Laura was doing laundry, Daniel handed his mom his cell phone with the song “Waving Through a Window” from “Dear Evan Hansen” — a Broadway musical about a socially anxious high school boy — cued up.
