The week leading up to Rise Above It and the event itself was a SUCCESS !! The week leading up to Rise Above It was a big work week for our group to ensure that we had everything to make the event run as smoothly as possible. We routinely met with Mrs. Fangman (guidance counselor) to complete our tasks. One of these was making signs for the breakout rooms with room numbers and session times to ensure that everyone who attended the event knew where they were going to ensure a positive experience for them. Our biggest task was assigning each volunteer who signed up to help with the event a position/job for the event. We met with Mrs. Fangman to discuss this and determined which job would be fit for each person depending on their strengths/weaknesses/etc. The previous week, we created and sent out a volunteer interest form (via google form) and received close to 30 responses! We were amazed at the amount of responses and willingness of our student body to help with this event. Filling in the volunteer slots was kind of like a puzzle because certain people were only there for a specific amount of time, but since the response to our volunteer form was so positive and numerous, we were able to do this very efficiently and effectively! Next, Mr. Large contacted us and said that Mr. Robinson, who works at the town hall, contacted him and asked if we wanted some signs to use for the event with positive messages ("you are loved", etc.). We thought that these would be perfect to go along with what we had been doing and the type of event we were planning for, so we reached out to him and accumulated these signs and put them up at the event when we arrived. Before this week, we also were able to advertise the event more through the interviews for a story in the Greenfield Daily Reporter as well as a video created by Wes Anderson where we discussed the Rise Above It event and its importance.
The day of the event, Naomi, Braeden, and I arrived a little bit before 3:30pm before the other student volunteers were expected to arrive to ensure things were organized beforehand. We put up the signs from Mr. Robinson and hung up the signs we created for the rooms on the doors that they belonged on. We called Joe from Needlers who is providing the donuts as incentives to volunteers to make sure he was still willing to do that and he was. Also, before the event, we made our way to each vendor around the gym and asked them what they wanted for dinner as well as their t-shirt size, and we went and got these things for them. We also organized some of the other volunteers to help us with this since there were so many vendors. We then headed to our first breakout session around 5:15 pm (the first session started at 3:30pm) so that we could prepare to hand out the surveys to the audience coming in to listen to the presenter. Braeden, Naomi, and I each went to different breakout sessions so that there was a student helper in each room. I was a student helper in all four blocks of the breakout sessions so I traveled from room to room. These sessions lasted from 5:30-6:00pm, 6:05-6:35pm, 6:40-7:10pm, and 7:15-7:45pm. Afterwards, I cleaned up a little and checked in with Mrs. Fangman to make sure there was nothing else that needed to be done and then headed out around 8:05pm Overall, this project was a fun project to work on and I would definitely do this again because my group and I had a really great time working on this project because it also provided us the opportunity to learn some things at the event as well!
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My name is Emma, and for my first project I wanted to a project revolving around mental health. Naomi and Braeden, who I am working with, also had similar ideas in wanting do do a project solely based around mental health and awareness of mental health in our communities. This project was important to me because mental health and mental health issues have become so prevalent in our community and are not talked about enough! There have been many tragedies in our school due to mental health, and I feel that this os because of the stigma and shame surrounding struggles with mental health. While we were thinking about this and trying to come up with a project, the guidance department/school counselors approached our class and asked if any group wanted to work with them on putting on a mental health event at the Intermediate School called Rise Above it. Of course, our group was definitely interested! Rise Above It is an emotional/health wellness event with different breakout sessions (anxiety, depression/suicide, self-regulation, etc).
Our tasks so far have been to get the word out about the event through putting up signs on our school grounds and handing out flyers to all our teachers in our school building. We have also been in several meetings with guidance as well as a meeting with Amanda Hinkle, the head of this event, and a video shoot with Wes Anderson to promote this event. Our next steps will be to have a phone call with the Greenfield Daily Reporter for a story on Rise Above it and to send out the form that we have already created that asks for student volunteers. Along with this, we will be putting together bags for this event with supplies Ms. Hinkle will be providing for us. |
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