During Mental Health Awareness Month, observed in May, Peer Resource — Urban’s student leadership group dedicated to mental health awareness — led two events. PR members began organizing the events during the group’s annual retreat in February, and approximately 100 students attended each event.

Peer Resource, which consists of 16 student members from 10th through 12th grade, meets weekly throughout the year to plan MHAM events. The events have been an annual tradition at Urban since 2022. 

This year, PR has taken a more intentional approach to planning MHAM events than in previous years. “Last year, [MHAM] was a little more, ‘Hang out in the sunshine and just kind of enjoy the scene,’” said Theo Dale ’26, a PR member. “But this year, it has a little more purpose. And that’s where we’re seeing PR move: towards not just doing stuff for fun, but doing stuff to actually make an impact.”

Urban’s 2026 MHAM events revolved around a central theme, Towards Beauty. “Looking at the world outside of Urban, there’s been so much bad news and scary news,” said Joey Mintz, who is a school counselor and PR faculty leader alongside Amina Samake ’99. “You can feel really helpless because you can’t do anything about it a lot of the time. But what you can do is choose to remind yourself of all the beautiful things in the world … so that you can continue to exist facing these hard realities.”

Twelfth graders in PR worked with the group’s faculty advisers and school counselors to plan this year’s first event, “Shirley You Like Your Friends,” which ran on May 14. During the event, students made art and wrote letters of appreciation to their friends while sipping Shirley Temples and eating chips.

“We’re trying to have the student body see … beauty in others and beauty in our relationships and put that into words or drawings,” said Lucy Sylvester ’26, a member of PR who helped organize “Shirley You Like Your Friends.” “And for seniors, … we’re gonna miss our friends when we’re in college, and so we wanted to get in the habit of writing letters and reaching out.”

Emily Saunders ’28 attended “Shirley You Like Your Friends” with her friends. “I had a lot of fun there. I think it was a combination of the beautiful weather, being around all my friends and doing something that was so loving,” she said.

The second MHAM event — organized by 10th- and 11th-grade PR members — was named “Get Messy.” Students finger-painted in the garden and ate nostalgic snacks, such as seaweed and goldfish, to connect with their childhood. “As a child, you’re less clouded by people telling you what to do,” said Natalie Babler-Kuebler ’27, a PR member. “The simplicity of being a kid is beautiful in its own way.”

During this year’s MHAM events, PR members encouraged the Urban community to improve well-being through small, positive acts. “Writing a letter to your friend one day out of the year can seem small,” Mintz said. “But Amina, myself and PR believe if you do a lot of small things, that ends up impacting your quality of life. And so I think we’re believers in small things having big impacts.”

PR members hope this year’s events allowed students to expand their view on mental health. “This Mental Health Awareness Month isn’t supposed to be sad and depressing,” said Charley Roberts ’27, a PR member. “It should be about being in community with each other and helping each other. There’s a lot of joy in mental health.”