PH Cares, a club that raises awareness about mental health, has been promoting Mental Health Awareness Month at Pascack Hills. Jessica Sachs-Serfess and Michelle Gaeta, the faculty advisors of the club, discussed activities they are doing to promote this month. 

“I have been sending mass emails daily with media resources including ways to handle stressors,” Sachs-Serfess said. Students and staff have been receiving these emails since the beginning of the month. 

Gaeta said the club recently organized a handprint activity to support people struggling with their mental health. Students from both cohorts painted their hands with mainly green paint and placed their handprints onto a large poster, representing solidarity. 

“We wanted to bring solidarity, especially with the separate cohorts [due to Covid-19],” she said. 

Sophomore Izzy Gudin is a member of the club and participated in the activity.

“The handprint poster project was something that we put together for all students and faculty to highlight that you are not alone. Students and faculty had the opportunity to pick from nine different colors of paint, each symbolizing something different,” she explained. 

Gudin noted what some of the other colors represented; purple symbolizes a loss of a friend or relative, and blue symbolizes support towards suicide prevention. 

In other years, the club has hung posters in the cafeteria, sold t-shirts with the message of “Strong and Beautiful,” and participated in an Out of the Darkness walk hosted by the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI). Last year, the club was unable to do any activities due to the pandemic. 

The main message that Gaeta, Sachs-Serfess, and members of the club hope to have made clear is that students and staff are not alone. 

Rachel Kim, a second sophomore and club member, expressed, “the whole stigma around this form of health and taking care of your mind can be easily disregarded, but I hope that our community will realize that it’s not just ‘doing yoga’ or waking up at 5 a.m. to get your day started.” 

The PH Cares advisors echoed similar thoughts about the mental health stigma.

“This isn’t just an isolation issue. Everyone knows people who are affected, or are personally affected themselves,” Sachs-Serfess said. Gaeta added, “We want to ensure that it’s okay to talk about, and that there are ways to help.”