The Hornet Mental Health Club is a group of students selected by the Upper School counselors who work toward bringing awareness to the topic of mental health around campus.
The HMH club was founded many years ago but became inactive due to COVID-19. It was brought back last spring and is now administered by Upper School Counselor Amanda Frederick.
“Last year, a group of students came to me, asking if we could bring it back,” Frederick said. “Since then, we’ve been working towards forming a group of students dedicated to bettering mental health in the community.”
The students in the club go through an application process to ensure that everyone in it is not just preaching mental health but modeling it too.
“I think the point of applications is so students can reflect on the message of mental health,” junior member Camila Hanson said. “The members of the club have to be compassionate and caring to make sure there is no hypocrisy.”
The selectivity of the club, due to the application process, is also in place to showcase the seriousness of the club.
“I think the application process is demonstrating to Mr. Oros that we really want to work towards becoming more of a board,” Frederick said. “The idea that we’re modeling that same structure is so that, ideally, we could eventually grow into one, like the athletics board or the fine arts board.”
HMH is made up of 14 members from all four grades across the Upper School and is led by the two senior co-presidents, McKenna Higgins and Jnana Velamuri.
“I originally entered the group my sophomore year, and I had originally learned about the group through my older brother, who was in a leadership role,” said Higgins. “I am very passionate about mental health and making sure everyone has the appropriate support to maintain it, and there wasn’t much movement in tenth grade. So, in eleventh grade, I decided I wanted to restart the group with these values in mind.”
Over the past year, Higgins has worked in collaboration with the other HMH members to further the club’s mission of raising awareness for mental health and planning events, like the popsicle stand, to bring up morale around campus.
“The bulletin that we made at the end of last year took a lot of outside-of-school planning and work, including working during breaks and staying late to set it up,” said Higgins. “We hope to continue things like this throughout this year as the group gets back into full swing!”
