Parry Sound High School (PHSH) students are spreading positive messages through posters, vinyl and murals throughout the school.
It’s all part of a campaign kicked off by the Doc Rob Foundation’s Terry Lynn Stevens and Maria Rutledge, who began a friendship as shared survivors of suicide loss.
Melissa Beasley, Visual Arts Teacher at PSHS, says Stevens and Rutledge came to the principal asking if there were some teachers that would take on a project to do positivity messaging as a suicide prevention campaign at the school.
Beasley says Emily Jenkins, Drama teacher, took on the project which she says is threefold.
“We have vinyl posters that were designed and created by Aqua Graphics that have gone up in the hallways, on doors and in the bathrooms. We have these other message holders that are still in the works that will go up with QR codes of services that students can access if they’re struggling with mental health, addiction or any other problems that we come across that we can provide a service for,” she says.
And finally, Beasley says there is a tech hall beautification project where senior visual arts students are choosing a positive quote, song lyric, poem or message and then they design it like graffiti or text as art and paint the walls above and around the lockers.
She says the school already has about 20 of those designs going up so far. Beasley says the idea is that if there’s somebody suffering in silence or needing somebody to talk to that maybe they will take in one of those messages and go talk to somebody in guidance or at home about getting some help.
“What we’re actually seeing though, which was a nice surprise, is increased student engagement and attendance. That’s because they’re painting the halls and it’s their own design, they’ve taken a lot of pride into it and I’ve seen better attendance and involvement from both of my senior classes. It’s what keeps them in school instead of deciding not to come,” she says.
Beasley says she’s had numerous students who are not in her visual arts program come and ask to complete a mural. She says they’ll do it on their lunches or if they have a spare or even on snow days.
“My students are getting a mark for it as a project, but I have students that aren’t in my program at all coming and asking if they can paint a positive message. And I have numerous students in my class that have done more than one,” she says.
Beasley says the program had such a good response from the students that Terry Lynn and Maria have offered to keep it going year long.
That means instead of just two classes that she has running now, Beasley’s next semester classes will be able to add on to it.