DECA seniors Emily Cortes and Agau Bol raise mental health awareness with their “Happiness (DECA) project”, which included selling shirts to raise money for various mental health organizations.
The Project Happiness shirts have arrived today (December 4th) so that everyone can have them in time for the 12/8 varsity boys and girls basketball games as the theme will be Happiness Project. They are available for pickup in room B14, Ms. Ally Gilin’s room.
The deadline to purchase a shirt was on November 9th. However if you missed the deadline you can contact Ms. Ally Gilin, @ally.gilin.plcschools.org, or go to her room, B14, and order a shirt from there as well as a sticker.
Happiness Projects is a clothing and lifestyle brand with a mission to break the stigma behind mental health and elevate happiness throughout the world.
“Our primary goal with this project is to spread awareness in our community outside of social media to talk about mental health,” said Cortes.
Inspiration came from individuals in school and on social media having hard times.
“I was inspired by the amount of people I know that don’t realize how much their mental health impacts their day to day life,” Cortes said. “I think that some people are not aware that some of the things they struggle with shouldn’t be kept bottled up and that they should speak up about what is bothering them.”
Inspiration also came from more personal ties.
“We both lost peers to suicide. One in 2020, and the other lost a friend in 8th grade to suicide,” Bol said. “[This project] helps all people understand that it is okay to not be okay and to speak out for help.”
Cortes and Bol are selling $21 shirts for this project.
“$15 would be the purchase price going back to the Happiness Project. We bumped up the price to $20 so that $5 would go to the primary organization that the Happiness Project supports, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) Unfortunately the online shop that we work with takes away a dollar every purchase so we had to make the price $21 dollars,” Cortes said.
There were some difficulties while trying to figure out a reasonable price for these shirts.
“A lot of students either don’t have jobs or simply could not afford to spend money,” Cortes said.
Thanks to everyone who has ordered their T-Shirts, Bol and Cortes raised nearly $2000 to be donated to various mental health resources.
