SADD hosts annual Be the Light event
Be the Light, an annual event hosted by Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) to raise suicide awareness, took place Friday, Sept. 20, starting at 6 p.m. at the football game.
The event consisted of club members passing out pins and glowsticks as well as selling shirts with the Be the Light logo on them. Vice president of the club and junior Kate Gramling assisted at the event and finds the cause significant especially regarding the younger generation.
“It’s important that you find people that are able to be lights in other peoples’ lives because mental health is such an important issue, specifically the suicide rates among adolescents,” Gramling said. “It’s just something we really need to be paying attention to because it’s affecting us more and more every day with all of the stress that students are under.”
This is the second year for club president and senior Lucy Morris, who helped conduct Be the Light last year. Morris, who also gave a speech during the game’s halftime, resonates with the goal of the event and hopes to change students’ perspectives on the issues of mental health.
“I was inspired to do this because when I was about eight years old my cousin committed suicide and before that it was my grandfather so it’s really close to my heart,” Morris said. “I feel like too often these issues of mental health go unnoticed and no one really talks about them, so the goal of this event was to raise awareness for the cause and do so in a lighthearted way.”
