Wisconsin Students Design T-Shirts for Mental Health Awareness

The Marshfield Columbus Leadership Alliance (MCLA) and the Marshfield Area Coalition for Youth (MACY) sponsored a student T-shirt design contest to bring awareness to the positive impact kindness has on mental health.

As reported by OnFocus, the groups held a contest to develop a design for the shirts that were to be sold. During December, students from Kindergarten through 12^th grade got a chance to submit a design for the contest that was themed, “Kindness Begins with Understanding.”

After the winning design was chosen, the T-shirts were printed and sold through Premier Printing up until Jan. 21. On Feb. 14, the school districts and local community are encouraged to wear the shirts in support of mental health and to kick off a week full of kindness and mental health awareness at Marshfield schools leading up to Random Acts of Kindness Day on Feb. 17.

According to Joanne Greenlee, Marshfield School District’s mental health coordinator, the students with MCLA and MACY are trying to create a community around mental health.

“The goal for wearing the T-shirts is awareness; to remind people how important kindness is to ourselves and to others, and that how we treat each other matters, both individually and as a community,” Greenlee tells OnFocus. “Everyone wearing the T-shirts on one day can have a positive impact to show we are unified in wanting to make things better for ourselves and others, that we care about each other.”

This is the first year the Marshfield students have put on the student-led initiative, and they hope to make it an annual event.