PHS PERSPECTIVE: Club works to make students happier and SAFE

By Byrne Fahey
   Anyone who glanced in the mirror in the bathrooms by the 180s hallway on Wednesday, Jan. 23, would have initially faced not their reflection, but a sign reading “Hey, sexy lady!” It was the hope of the members of Princeton High School’s suicide awareness club, SAFE (Suicide Awareness For Education), that anyone would then laugh.
   The club, lead by seniors Nicky Kratzer and Raz Segal, hand-wrote compliments and taped them to bathroom mirrors as part of a “Happy Week” project, a week-long campaign to promote happiness at PHS.
   ”Right before midterms, everyone gets really stressed out [so] we’re trying to promote happiness and good ways of coping with all the stress,” said Kratzer. The project took place during the four-day week just before exams began.
   Members of SAFE planned a different mini-project for each day of the week.
   ”The first day was Tuesday and that day we handed out lollipops and stickers throughout break, just to put a smile on people’s faces,” said Kratzer. “When people would get the candy they’d always be happy, which was really good. That’s kind of the point.”
   Wednesday was mirror compliments day, and on Thursday, motivational quotes (for instance, “Don’t forget to smile”) and images were put up all around the school.
   On Friday, the week culminated with a bake sale to support the club. Students were asked to wear yellow to raise suicide awareness and anyone wearing the color was entitled to a free baked good.
   ”There were a lot of people I’d never talked to before wearing yellow and I think that’s really good to show that it’s reaching out to a bunch of different people,” said Kratzer.
   Overall, both Kratzer and Segal considered the campaign a success.
   ”The little things can brighten your day and that’s important to remember when you’re really stressed,” said Kratzer.
   While this was the first time SAFE did a project like this, the leaders hope that it will become a tradition.
   ”We want to try making it not just this week, but random weeks or days where we have these compliments or quotes,” said Segal.
   The girls also hope that the club itself will live on. Currently, it is mostly composed of seniors, but Kratzer expressed a wish to gain more traction with underclassmen, who could keep the club running.
   In the meantime, SAFE members will remain busy for the rest of the year. The club will be involved with a two-month campaign called “The Storytellers,” organized by To Write Love on Her Arms, a national nonprofit movement “dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide,” according to its mission statement.
   The campaign is a longer-term project to promote positive mental health in students and reduce depression and risk of suicide. SAFE also plans on bringing in a speaker to discuss topics relating to its cause.
   ”We have two things we want to do,” said Segal about the club’s general purpose. “One, we want to raise awareness for suicide, but that’s kind of a hard topic for many people. So while we’re doing that, we just want to make everything happier. Small things, compliments that we hand out, lollipops, small stuff like that just makes everything a bit better.”
Byrne Fahey is a senior at Princeton High School.