Hampton-Dumont-CAL will host a “Kick the Stigma” event next month aimed at raising awareness about mental health and suicide prevention.
The event is scheduled for Thursday, April 16, when the Bulldogs soccer teams take on Charles City in a varsity doubleheader.
High school principal Matt Trosky tells RadioOnTheGo News the effort is about connecting students and the community with available support and reducing stigma around mental health.
“Over the last few years, again, Hampton-Dumont has been struck with a little bit of tragedy in terms of the loss of some of our students. And one of the ways that we feel like we can continue to grow and get better for our students and our staff and our community is to hold events like this that take away the stigma of mental health, brain health concerns, along with just providing hope to people that there are resources out there. It doesn’t necessarily matter your situation financially or where you live, but that there’s always somebody available.”
Trosky says there will be roughly six vendors on hand to share information and materials with attendees.
“I know that we might have some opportunities from Alive and Running (Iowa) with Ryan Nesbit. We will have somebody, believe, from Franklin General out there. We have some local services that might be present. The idea is to provide promotional materials to you all so you have the resources. If you walk around our high school building, you’ll see both English, and in Spanish, things like 988 numbers, who do you call, who do you text. We have some information that we’ve used in the past. We don’t have them this year, but stickers for people to be able to contact. And so really it’s about making sure that every kid, every person who’s going through something knows that we have somebody present.”
The event also builds on similar efforts at the school and comes as the district continues expanding mental health awareness and peer-support programs for students. The evening begins with the girls match at 5:00 followed by the boys at 7:00.
