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Bullied NY woman sets up anti-bullying foundation

The former upstate New York school bus monitor whose videotaped bullying by students spurred more than $700,000 in donations to her is using some of the funds to start her own anti-bullying foundation. WAMC's Dave Lucas reports.

The Karen Klein Anti-Bullying Foundation has been established as part of the GiveBack Foundation, which allows individuals to set up foundations online.

According to her page on GiveBack's website, Klein is using $100,000 to start a foundation to support anti-bullying initiatives around the world.

More than 32,000 people donated money online on Klein's behalf after a video showing her being bullied on a suburban Rochester school district bus by middle school students went viral. The 68-year-old said last month that she was retiring.

The four students who taunted Klein were suspended for a year.

Dave Lucas is WAMC’s Capital Region Bureau Chief. Born and raised in Albany, he’s been involved in nearly every aspect of local radio since 1981. Before joining WAMC, Dave was a reporter and anchor at WGY in Schenectady. Prior to that he hosted talk shows on WYJB and WROW, including the 1999 series of overnight radio broadcasts tracking the JonBenet Ramsey murder case with a cast of callers and characters from all over the world via the internet. In 2012, Dave received a Communicator Award of Distinction for his WAMC news story "Fail: The NYS Flood Panel," which explores whether the damage from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee could have been prevented or at least curbed. Dave began his radio career as a “morning personality” at WABY in Albany.