The hallways of the school feel more gray than ever – students walk with their head down, music blasting in their ears, living day to day just waiting for the next weekend or break. One student noticed this, and decided he had to do something to help. He was determined to fill the school halls with positivity.

STAMP is a program created by senior Christain Swint to help bring awareness to the issue that is teen mental health. Swint has created outlets for students who are struggling with their mental health by making a positivity board where students can share positive messages, leading a peer initiative program, starting a quote of the week and giving students the opportunity to share their own experience with mental health. You can find their website here. 

“STAMP stands for students taking action for mental positivity,” Swint said. “It’s a program I started to help raise awareness for teen mental health. This is a pretty serious issue in our social world today, and not many people really know about it. So I really wanted to get the word out and spread awareness by creating a program.”

Swint’s major goals for the club are spreading awareness, expanding it and helping teens everywhere while creating an impact.

“My goal for this program is to make sure that students know about it,” Swint said. “I want there to be a lot more awareness for teen mental health and I want to help students realize that it’s a big issue. I want to make sure this program has a large impact on the school, so we can have students bond more knowing that we’re all here for each other, that’s what the program is all about. Since this is a program that I’m starting here at LHS, it would be really cool if I can make the program spread in the future. So instead of it just being here, maybe it’ll be at Rouse or Vista Ridge, or maybe even outside of our school district, which would be pretty awesome.”

Because Swint is a senior, the program will have to be picked up by other students to keep the program running next year.

“If students want to be a part of the program, towards the end of this year, I’ll start getting people together to lead the program next year. There’ll be two parts of it – there’s the program which all students are a part of, and there’s the club where students can be an actual member of the program. The club will have people working on the website, updating the board and making sure the quotes of the week are going out.”

Swint is also a part of The National Eagle Scout Association which has pushed him to create something different from all the other clubs and programs at our school.

“I created this program because it’s part of an Eagle Scout project that I’m working on. Which is basically a big project that I do for a community. Part of completing an Eagle project is having to lead the people who are helping you complete your project. So I had to be a leader to other students and scouts and ask them to help me get my program all set up and going. It helped me realize how to put things together and be more organized and timely.”