On February 26, Revere High School’s (RHS) community CARE organization sponsored an event to address mental health issues that students face.
The community CARE organization is a non-profit organization that provides information and support to the community (parents, students, teachers and other community members) regarding negative influences that children face and to address potential at-risk behaviors of children. Mindful Monday is an event that educated community members on these important issues.
Karen Smik, president of CARE, oversaw the event, and she explained what the Mindful Monday event was.
“The event was established to help address mental health issues that our students are facing/dealing with and to provide some possible ways to deal with these issues. Last year’s district health and wellness event was held on a Wednesday so it was called Wellness Wednesday,” Smik said.
The event included many different activities and speakers to create awareness about the mental health of students. Bonnie Simonelli, RHS’s at-risk coordinator, explained some of the activities that were at the event.
“There were therapy dogs, a library pop up, face painting for the little kids and we had the jump ropes, [and] some more other physical things. And then we had the people that were at the tables [to be from] different community mental health agencies that are really close to here. You don’t have to go too far to find agencies, they’re right here within our community,” Simonelli said.
These agencies were welcomed with open arms. Dr. Andy Peltz, RHS Principal, spoke about how the event affected the Revere community outside of the schools.
“[It] was nice to give our community groups and organizations a space for them to share what resources [we] have. . . . [and] a free space that we didn’t charge them to come. . . . [and] advertise what resources are available. . . . and hopefully connect with some of our families that might need that support,” Peltz said.
Emily Rion, school counselor and Active Minds adviser, contacted the keynote speaker, Hunter Frey-Burkart. Burkart studies neuroscience at Kent State University and is the chapter adviser of the Kent State Active Minds chapter.
“His focus was on literally taking apart the brain as much as you can, because it’s such a complex organ. Taking apart the brain and also seeing how food impacts your chemical responses, your sleep and just kind of like environmental factors impacts your brain. And like mental health disorders really do kind of stem from a ton of different factors,” Rion said.
Active Minds volunteered at the event selling snacks and bringing awareness to a resource RHS has within the school. Senior Lily Hoza, Active Minds co-president, explained that it is important to introduce the club to the community.
“I think it’s important because it helps bring more publicity to Active Minds as well as just introduce it to the community, because it’s something that a lot of high schools don’t do. It helps parents feel more comfortable because we’re bringing awareness to mental heath and having resources that can help people,” Hoza said.
Rion shared the same sentiment, explaining that the more this event grows, the more the stigma of mental health is broken.
“It is not necessarily comfortable for everybody to talk about, but every single person on this planet has mental health. So I think that the more we do these things, the more normalized it becomes, and then the more people will be open and getting help,” Rion said.
Rion’s hope for the future of the event is for it to continue, with even more local mental health organizations represented.
“I hope it continues.I would like to see even more resources being represented there next year,” Rion said.
