Supporting “End the Silence” at Homecoming
The End the Silence club, now lead by seniors Judy Guo, Faith Marshall, and Maisy Pekala, is looking to bring mental health awareness to the students of HHS, one athletic event at a time.
Homecoming weekend is set to be held this coming Friday and Saturday, and will be comprised of numerous home and away games, as well as a Homecoming dance spearheaded by the classes of 2020 and 2021.
The volleyball, girls’ soccer, and football teams will be competing at home on Friday, while the field hockey girls will head out to ConVal to play their match. The XC team has a meet in Manchester on Saturday, and the varsity field hockey gals will play at ConVal High school. Finally, the boys’ soccer team will play Portsmouth at HHS.
To celebrate a long weekend of athletic showings, the dance will be held in the gym from 8 to 10 pm on Saturday night.
Now, with all these light-hearted activites, where does a club originally started to promote awareness surrounding teen-suicide fit in?
The answer comes from a leader of the club, herself, Faith Marshall.
She says that the club intends to “bring awareness to our club and show [their] support for the school.”
End the Silence is “looking to sponsor the girls Varsity and Junior Varsity soccer games, both starting at 4.” They are then going to the girl’s Varsity volleyball game which begins at 5:45, and will “end the evening with the football game at 7”.
To illustrate the club’s goals of promoting awareness of mental illness and suicide-prevention, for the girls’ games, the group is going to provide “yellow ribbon or yellow prewrap” for the team members, and, for the football game, the plan is to “share the festivities by handing out yellow glow bracelets and necklaces.” Additionally, there will be donation jars to support the club at each event.
Homecoming begins Friday, September 20th, the first game starting at 4. There will be food and fun at each game, as well as lots and lots of yellow to represent the importance of bringing awareness to mental illness.