Zoe Howard
Staff Writer
Three Costa shine a light on mental health issues in order to stimulate a conversation across the school.
Junior Ella Scalabrini and seniors Amanda Costley and Izzy Costley held events each day during the week of April 8 to the 12 for Mental Health Awareness Week.
“A lot of people obviously in high school are under a lot of stress because of homework and college [applications], and a lot of people don’t know how to cope with that or think that it is part of high school,” Scalabrini said. “This is giving them better ways to find out how better to cope with it and live a more positive healthy life.”
Scalabrini, Costley, and Stein put together an art contest where students can submit visual art and films with the topic “how do you see mental health”. They want to keep the contest very broad and allow students to have their own interpretation, according to Costley. The films will focus on mental health and how it affects people in their everyday life. Costa advisory panel, two people from Beach Cities Health District, and Dr. Dale will decide the winner. On April 11 and April 12, the art and film will be displayed. “Isolation” by Renee Boettner and Carmen Weiss won first place, “Struggles” by Georgia Renshaw won second place and “When the sky lies” by Cory Kaplan won third place.
“For the artists, [the contest] allows them to express and think about the implications of mental health on themselves and their peers,” said Costley. “By creating art and showing others, it will create a dialogue about mental health and hopefully raise awareness at our school.”
On Tuesday, April 9th there was a drum circle and yoga in the quad. It promotes being creative and allowing time to express yourself through different outlets bringing people around the school together, according to Costley.
“Through the yoga, we hope to give them maybe not necessarily things they will do at home with yoga, but maybe breathing [exercises] they can do to try to calm their nerves on a stressful day,” said Scalabrini.
At Costachella, the Mira Costa High School music festival, they brought in local resource booths from fitness studios, blue zone grocery stores, a representative from the CCC, and counselors.
“This is a way for students to understand ways they can maintain a healthy lifestyle and options they have in the community,” Costley said. “It will allow students to also become more connected to representatives from the school and the community. There will also be raffle tickets handed out at the resource table for prizes at the end of the event.”
To put on all the events, Scalabrini, Costley, and Stein applied for a grant with Beach Cities Health District to fund the project. To prepare for the events, they had help from a group of about fifteen Costa students to ensure everything runs smoothly. They also talked to the film and art teachers, as well as some of Costa’s administration.
“We also hope to develop a closer relationship the administration and the student counselors because I feel like students don’t really know that they can go to their counselors if they need help and [hope] they can create a stronger connection,” said Scalabrini.
Scalabrini, Costley, and Stein have been working for approximately 8 months, many students on the youth advisory council also helped run the events throughout the week.
“I think it is brushed over a lot in high school especially as teenagers like this is just apart of high school, its hard but I think the amount of stress that students feel at costa is a lot to just let go by and noticed so we hope that this will help students cope with it and gain more awareness to different struggles,” Scalabrini said.
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