Support A Belle, Love A Belle week is one of Saint Mary’s best traditions. SABLAB is an SGA week dedicated to mental illness awareness and support. SABLAB was planned by SGA Social Concerns committee chairs Jenna Wozniak and Mary Joy Dingler. Mary Joy, an English and Humanistic Studies major, told me a little bit about SABLAB and her role in SGA! She planned an awesome week, so if you have time definitely try and get to some of SABLAB’s events! You may even get free sunglasses!
What’s your favorite part of SGA?
My favorite part about being in SGA is having the opportunity to be a leader within the Saint Mary’s community. SGA itself is a great community of young women and I love being part of it.
Why did you want to be Social Concerns Committee Co-chair?
I wanted to be Social Concerns Chair because I love Support A Belle, Love A Belle and Love Your Body Weeks. I’ve always been insecure and there are people all over that either suffer from insecurities or have mental health disorders, I really wanted to be able to plan events that would bring up the confidence of the student body as a whole and make girls feel comfortable here. I remember I felt so comforted by the fact that we had two weeks on campus that were completely aimed towards encouraging Belles to be there for one another, so I really wanted to play a role in planning those influential weeks.
What is the overall message of SABLAB?
I think the overall message of SABLAB is not just educating the community on the variety of different mental health issues, but also creating an healthy support system. To me, the goal of the week is to raise awareness for mental health as well as bring Belles together through a variety of different events to let every girl on this campus know that she is sharing an experience with her fellow classmates; no one is alone.
What are the events for SABLAB?
On Monday we have a student panel, Tuesday Kathy Hennessy (’80) and her daughter Kate (’12) are coming to speak about Apraxia of Speech, Wednesday we have four dogs and a bunny coming from the South Bend Humane Society, Thursday we are helping promote a talk the girls featured in The Hunting Ground are giving, Friday is a dessert social where we will decorate jewelry boxes, and Sunday we’ll be showing Inside Out in partnership with SAB for Sundaes on Sunday.
What are you most excited for?
I’m excited for the whole week! I think it will be awesome, but I’m really looking forward to Kathy and Kate’s speech on Tuesday. Kathy and my mom were actually in the same class at Saint Mary’s and they were great friends. So not only am I excited to meet one of my mom’s friends, I’m really looking forward to hearing what Kathy and Kate have to say. Kathy and I have been in a lot of contact since early August and she and Kate are really looking forward to coming back to SMC. They love the message that we’re sending with SABLAB. Kate and Kathy co-wrote Anything but Silent, which talks about Kate’s struggle in overcoming Childhood Apraxia of Speech as well as Kathy’s fight to raise awareness for the disorder. Kate completely overcame the disorder and now works on movie sets as a production assistant, and she even worked on Glee! I think their speech is going to be very powerful and it will bring attention to an underrepresented issue in society.