On Friday, February 12th, we, at Her Campus-Penn State Behrend, hosted our first on-campus event. Partnering with Hey, You’re Amazing, an organization whose main goal is to help those struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, we decided that we’d spread a little positivity and love to those who need it most (our stressed out peers). As someone who has struggled with depression, Brian “B. Thom” Blee, founder of Hey, You’re Amazing, launched the site two years after losing his best friend to suicide as a way to find peace. The purpose of this organization has grown from a coping mechanism to a way to spread positivity to those around. With a phrase as simple as “Hey, You’re Amazing” you can instantly spread that positivity to everyone around you and remind them that they are not alone.
Being in college involves balancing classes, extracurricular activities, a social life, and everything else in between, and it’s easy to get wrapped up in the anxiety of it all. Without even realizing it, we slip into a dizzying spiral of that stress. By teaming up with Hey, You’re Amazing, our goal was to combat that negativity by passing on the positivity, and spreading awarness that students care about other students. Between the hours of 12:15 pm and 3:15 pm, we manned a table outside of Bruno’s (an on-campus dining hall) and had students, faculty, and staff write positive affirmations on a poster board that we are going to hang up in the engineering building to remind students who walk past it that they are loved. At first, we were asking people to write on our board, explaining what exactly the point was, and many responded with a simple “oh,” or “so I just have to write something nice?” It’s not often that students are asked to do something, simply to make others happy.
Usually approaching a club’s table means donating money, signing up for a news letter, etc., which makes individuals hesitant to approach at all, but it wasn’t long before our table was surrounded by Behrend Lions, egar to leave their words of hope. By the end of the three hours, our poster, and all of our hearts, were very full. In addition to signing, students were handed a Hey, You’re Amazing card, for the purpose of further spreading the positivity, even after our event ended. We knew our message was a powerful one as we saw each student leaving our table with a smile, because that was the whole point, happiness, just because. At the end of the day, you are not alone, even if you feel like it. And hey, you’re amazing. Click for more information, or to get involved! HCXO