Portraits help Chelsea High students explain #WhyYouMatter

CHELSEA, MI - A row of portraits of every Chelsea High School student and staff member runs through the halls of the school, serving as a visual reminder that all 958 of them matter.

The project, unveiled Tuesday, Jan. 17, was born from a desire to bring the school community together following the deaths of three CHS students since October 2015, including two by suicide.

Led by students, the CHS art and counseling departments developed the concept of a #WhyYouMatter campaign to emphasize each person's unique contributions to their community. Art allowed students and staff alike to channel their emotions into action.

"We're just trying to get people to express their emotions, because it's a small community and it's hurting and nobody really knew what to do," said Laura Naar, an art teacher who helped coordinate the project with art teacher Geo Rutherford.

Students spent months working on the #WhyYouMatter campaign, which came to fruition Monday when teachers had the chance to see the portraits all hung for the first time on their in-service day.

Having school canceled due to the icy conditions Tuesday meant the high schoolers didn't get to see the finished product before the public unveiling planned for that evening. But Naar said the process of creating the project already has been a meaningful experience.

"Every photo you're going to see is a discussion," she said. "There was a discussion leading up to that about something important."

In conjunction with conversations and events planned by the counseling department related to mental health and suicide prevention, English teachers helped students prepare for their participation in the #WhyYouMatter campaign. They had class discussions or wrote essays about their identities, Naar said.

When the students were ready for their portraits, they wrote their #WhyYouMatter statement on a whiteboard and student photographers captured the image. Students also edited the black-and-white photos, printed them and coordinated volunteers to hang them in the school on Sunday.

Rutherford and Naar documented the process and set up a website as a guide to other schools that may want to replicate the project.

"We decided to do it as a public art project because when artists are sad or upset or they've had something that they've struggled through, then their response is to make art," Rutherford said.

Some students were unsure about the project at first or didn't know what to write for their #WhyYouMatter statement, said senior Nora Krusinski, 17, who helped her peers work through that process.

"I would talk about what this project meant to me and what it meant to the art teachers," said Krusinski, who estimated she personally took more than 100 portraits and edited about 200 of them. "Everyone approaches this so differently. It's been like an eye-opener for me to see how other people view suicide and depression and anxiety, because I've always had my viewpoint and so it's kind of interesting to learn what they think too."

Senior Meagan O'Hara, 18, said CHS students seem more comfortable expressing themselves and checking in with each other since they launched the #WhyYouMatter campaign. A presentation at the school by former Detroit Lion Eric Hipple, who now is an outreach coordinator at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Depression Center, was helpful, O'Hara added.

"People are coming out, coming forward and being like, 'I'm not doing so well, can you help me? Or are there any resources that I can use?'" she said. "It's just made the whole atmosphere of Chelsea High School very much more understanding, much more empathetic toward each other in that we're all going through something and we all don't know what the other person's story is.

"This is a really good way to just get a little insight on somebody's life and how they're feeling," O'Hara added, pointing to the row of portraits behind her.

Senior Michaela Maynard, sophomore Jacqueline Taylor and senior Alannah Saxton - who all helped with the portrait project - said working on the #WhyYouMatter campaign helped them get to know their classmates better. Taylor said she realized she had more in common with some people than she initially thought.

In addition to the portraits, students also were encouraged to tweet to their peers or school staff telling them #WhyYouMatter to the community. The tweets are written on a bulletin board in the school, and there's another board where members of the community will be encouraged to write their own #WhyYouMatter statements.

One hallway is designated as a place for reflection, where people will have the chance to write an anonymous comment about what they thought of the portraits and tape it to the wall. The portraits will be displayed for about three weeks, said Jason Murphy, a school counselor who worked on the #WhyYouMatter campaign.

"They say a picture speaks a thousand words, and this is a thousand pictures speaking a thousand words of us coming together," Murphy said. "We're going to be strong and we're in this together."

Anyone in crisis can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Washtenaw Alive - Suicide Prevention Coalition has information on other local resources.

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