Fresh Check Day is just about here. From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 7 Vandal Health Education will be bringing this celebratory fair-like event to our campus.
There will be plenty of fun activities for everyone this Fresh Check Day including therapy dogs, free food, music, and prizes. Upon turning in your completed stamp passport you are even entered into a drawing to win a flat-screen TV. Vandal Health Education, the Counseling and Testing Center and many other campus groups and departments will be present at this event to bring activities, food, fun, games and, of course, resources to the University of Idaho students and staff.
There are many resources provided on campus, in the community, and nationally that can assist students in enhancing one’s own and other’s mental health. These resources provide information that can be useful in understanding mental health and combating negative stigmas surrounding such topics. Fresh Check Day provides an event that allows these many resources and important information to be shared through a peer-to-peer messaging model and in a fun and exciting way.
Fresh Check Day is the signature program of The Jordan Porco Foundation (JPF). JPF has worked with colleges to put on this event in order to bring awareness of mental health resources and coping strategies to campuses all over. JPF uses The Jed Foundation SPRC winning model for suicide prevention efforts on college campuses to support the messaging behind each booth. The booths at Fresh Check Day are designed to increase help-seeking behavior, promote social connectedness, develop life skills, and/or identify students at risk. This event is developed to empower us all in a variety of different ways regarding mental health and provide us with the tools, resources, and information we need to strengthen our own mental health as well as the mental health of others.
Fresh Check Day at UI will feature booths that focus on many different kinds of mental health topics. There will be booths such as the Nine Out of Ten booth that will provide students with the opportunity to take a pledge to aid in suicide prevention, booths focused on alcohol safety, creativity and art, physical activity, bystander intervention for sexual assault, stigma reduction, mental health screening, social support, and an LGTBQA support booth. This is going to be an extremely fun and engaging opportunity to learn and grow, as well as strengthen the impact we can make in our own lives as well as others.
Fresh Check Day will be a fun and engaging event that we can all benefit from and use to impact our community and those that enter our lives. Vandal Health Education is proud to bring this opportunity filled with games, food, music, and prizes to campus to help foster growth concerning mental health. So come join us on March 7 for Fresh Check Day and take that next step towards empowerment and developing lifelong skills that will impact not just your own life but those around you.
Dasyre Sires, Vandal Health Education