Youth Supporting Mental Health Awareness

Students will design and order a class set of t-shirts to promote mental health and end stigma. They will wear these t-shirts one day every week to encourage good mental health. On the first day they wear the t-shirts they will also a have a school wide "One Full Day of Kindness" based on one of Bell Let's Talk 5 ways to end the stigma around mental health. On the same day, they would also have a bake sale to raise money for the DIFD organization and have a variety of activities for all students in the school as a way of promoting kindness.

Update (May 10, 2016)

On Friday, April 29th the grade 5/6 class at St. John's Elementary hosted a "One Full Day of Kindness". On this day students participated in a variety of activities as a class and as a whole school. In the morning students participated in a "Warm and Fuzzy" activity where they wrote kind letters to each of their classmates. They then went around the entire school and posted kind words of encouragement on every locker and classroom door. At lunch time, students sold cupcakes that they had baked the previous day. The cupcake sale raised $110 that the students donated to the DIFD organization. In the afternoon students completed an art project in which the entire school participated to help celebrate each students differences and uniqueness. The entire day all the students in the class wore t-shirts that the class had designed and ordered. On the t-shirts "Break the Silence" was written, to help pass along the message of breaking the silence around mental health to help end the stigma.

Update (May 11, 2016)

On Friday, April 29 the grade 5/6 class at St. John’s Elementary hosted a “One Full Day of Kindness”. On the this day the entire class wore their “Break the Silence” t-shirts which they designed and purchased as a way to promote mental wellness and to help end the stigma surrounding mental illness. The students participated in a variety of class activities as well as whole school activities. They started off the morning by participating in a “Warm and Fuzzy” activity in which they wrote kind words of encouragement to each of their classmates. They followed up this activity by placing sticky notes with kind words on each of the lockers and classroom doors throughout the school. At lunchtime the students sold cupcakes which they had baked and decorated the day before. They raised $110 from the cupcake sale which they donated to the Do It For Daron organization. In the afternoon an entire school art activity was organized in which each student in the school traced their hand and designed and coloured it as uniquely as they would like. The hands were then all placed together to form the pedals on a flower. The art project was a celebration of each of the student differences and uniqueness but symbolized how the differences can form something beautiful all together.