The Hope FFA chapter has been honored for a suicide-prevention campaign its officers created to help their classmates.
Lauded by the national FFA as a “Premier Chapter: Growing Leaders” winner, chapter members from Hauser Jr.-Sr. High School were recognized last week during the National FFA Convention and Expo in Indianapolis.
The award was one of the top five presented to FFA chapters nationally.
The campaign, “Go Live Yourself,” was developed by seven Hope FFA officers at a summer retreat last year after the group recognized the effects of suicide and sensational language that was being used in cases of death by suicide, Hauser senior Mason Jordan said.
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Jordan, who is this year’s chapter president, said Hope FFA members are passionate about suicide prevention.
The “Go Live Yourself” campaign was created in response to a general increase in death by suicide nationwide and in response to comments that FFA members would hear among their fellow students, such as someone saying they would “kill themselves” after getting a bad grade on a test, or even random comments between students joking about suicide.
The main goal was to address those types of comments as much as possible and replace them with positive messages to let classmates know they are not alone, Jordan said.
“Whenever we as a school or when we hurt as a community, we all hurt. We approached it with open arms to our whole school,” Jordan said.
Part of the campaign featured every high school student writing a handwritten letter of encouragement to someone in the grade level below them, a project that involved more than 400 Hauser students. Faculty members wrote letters to the seniors, said Aleesa Dickerson, an adviser to the Hope FFA chapter with fellow educator Kelly Dressler.
Instead of the phrase “go kill yourself,” students worked to create posters and banners that rewrote the message to one of “living,” writing it as “Go Live Yourself.”
Some of the messages were crafted out of the series “13 Reasons Why,” a Netflix series debuting in 2017, which told the story of a 17-year-old high school student whose friend has died by suicide after having to face gossip and sexual assault at her high school, with little support from anyone. The series is about cassette tapes recorded by the girl which have 13 reasons why she decided to end her life.
Dickerson said the Hope FFA students changed that narrative by taking those reasons and turning them into messages of why not — reminding students that death by suicide is a permanent solution to what may be a temporary situation.
The Hope FFA chapter was notified in August that it was a top 10 finalist among FFA chapters across the United States for its work in suicide prevention. There are 8,630 FFA chapters throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the FFA.
“They took it and ran with it,” Dickerson said of students’ work. “I saw the need because the sensationalism of suicide was getting out of hand. We knew it wouldn’t be a change overnight.”
As part of the “Go Live Yourself” campaign, motivational speaker Nathan Harmon came to Hauser last year, Dickerson said. Students arriving after fall break found what Dickerson described as a transformed look of the school with messages such as “You are valued” and “You are worth more” in the hallways.
Hauser had a Random Acts of Kindness week, too, she said.
‘Cultural shift’
“We really wanted to make it a cultural shift instead of a one-day activity and I can definitely say we did that,” Dickerson said.
Hauser Principal David Wintin commended the 87-member Hope FFA chapter for its efforts, saying that the school has more students involved in the FFA chapter than any other organization.
He also said that students today do struggle and have barriers to overcome, while at the same time indicated that suicide seems to be glorified in society.
“We wanted to put that to rest and let people know there are many things to live for,” Wintin said.
Elijah Heslop, a junior at Hauser who serves as reporter with this year’s FFA officer team, said one of the goals with the campaign was to let students know that it is not OK to romanticize death by suicide or even joke about it.
“Go live yourself, go be free and do what you love,” Heslop said.
The atmosphere changed at Hauser once the campaign kicked off, Heslop said.
“There was a definite decline in people saying all these things about harming themselves,” he said.
The Hope FFA chapter didn’t set out to win an award for the campaign, but only wanted to make a difference and be leaders, Heslop said.
But it did feel good for the chapter to be recognized for the effort, he said.
“It validates the work that we put in to be recognized among thousands of chapters across the United States,” Heslop said.
Hope police and firefighters escorted the chapter members into Hope on Friday when they returned from Indianapolis, and classmates congratulated the FFA members as they returned to school, Jordan said.
“It felt good to know we always had that community support for us back home,” said Jordan, who has been with FFA all four of his years in high school. “We have a very unique community in how everyone helps each other out,” he said. “I believe we have the best leaders. We absolutely have the best support system.”
The “Go Live Yourself” campaign is continuing this year, and Harmon is expected to return to Hauser to speak to students this school year.
“These kids are unstoppable and are continuing to do amazing things,” Dickerson said. “There’s no limit to what these kids are doing. The kids are so excited … and they are so motivated to keep making a difference.”
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Number of members: 87
2017-2018 officer team
Grace Hasler, president
Mason Jordan, vice President
Haley Embry, student adviser
Tyler Moore, treasurer
Justin Stafford, sentinel
Elijah Heslop, reporter
Mel Hasler, secretary
2018-2019 officer team
Mason Jordan, president
Mel Hasler, vice president
Luke Harker, student adviser
Tyler Moore, treasurer
Beau McKinney, sentinel
Elijah Heslop, reporter
Durand Meyer, secretary
Advisors: Aleesa Dickerson and Kelly Dressler
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“We wanted to … let people know there are many things to live for.”
— Hauser Principal David Wintin
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