Students, Teachers Walk for Mental Health Awareness | News, Sports, Jobs

photo by: Gage Vota

Bellaire High School juniors Savannah Kanyuch, left, and Graham Campbell lead the school’s Sources of Strength group during their walk to raise awareness for mental health.

Bellaire High School’s Sources of Strength is walking toward mental health awareness.

“Our Sources of Strength group is a youth-led prevention group that meets once a month, and we do positive campaigns throughout the school. We spread hope and awareness. The students have done multiple campaigns around mental health, and in the fall we do Steps Against Suicide. And we’ve done a little Easter egg hunt with positive messages, basically anything that we can do to just reach every corner of the school, to spread positivity and hope. And then this is our Mental Health Awareness Week that we’ve been planning since February,” Bellaire High School Prevention Specialist Dorothy Turner said Friday.

She said unlike the Steps Against Suicide, the Mental Health Awareness Walk wasn’t a race orand it had no winners.

“​​This is not a 5K. We are having an awareness walk, but there are no prizes. There are no winners. We’re just gonna wear our green, it’s our Friday greenout, which is our last blast here at the high school. So we’re gonna wear green and carry banners and just walk around the same loop that we did last time for the Steps Against Suicide. But there’s just no race. We’re just going to do it collectively as a group with our message of spreading hope and awareness and reducing the stigma around mental health, because we know in 2025 there’s a lot of young people who struggle with anxiety or really deep mental health issues or whatever it is, everyone is going through something. So we just want to let them know that there are healthy activities that they can get involved with and there are multiple coping skills. There’s always help at every corner of our school, trusted adults and peer leaders are always here to lend a hand or to point them in the direction of help,” Turner said.

Two students held the banner that Turner referenced, juniors Graham Campbell and Savannah Kanyuch.

Both said that they were drawn to be involved in the walk to raise awareness because of seeing friends or loved ones struggle with mental health.

“My sister actually tried to kill herself, so I wanted to help more people find help,” Kanyuch said.

Campbell said that after seeing what mental health issues can do to people, it made him want to get out and help.

Spanish teacher and Sources of Strength adult leader Rebecca DiFabrizio added that the students have planned various activities in the park to help their peers find the time to relax and connect with each other.

“Their theme is “Stronger Together,” and so they have had yoga throughout the week. They’re playing cornhole, football and will have a ping pong tournament going on,” DiFabrizio said.

She added that the student leaders of Sources of Strength have been providing programming throughout the school year that focused on spreading positivity, hope and help.