Mental health is a crucial part of our lives, whether people want to acknowledge it or not. Especially with this new generation, many teens face extreme stress or anxiety from many different areas. Many teens don’t know how to deal with stress, which is why we decided the perfect addition to FDR would be a place to handle that stress and make managing our lives a little bit easier. “The Lounge” is a place for students to just come and relax while learning new strategies to help with whatever problems they’re dealing with. It’s a completely safe zone for those who don’t feel comfortable talking about their struggles.

“The Lounge” is a student based effort to help combat a very complex student problem. Many young people today feel they are alone in their problems, when in reality, those problems are just not talked about enough. We wanted to name the club “The Lounge” to make sure no one felt threatened or afraid to come. Often times, the exact name of mental health would deter students away from learning how to manage their stress. When we thought about making a club for this reason, we knew we had to make sure the taboo surrounding it, would not affect students who felt it was too uncomfortable or shameful.

Overall, the prime mission of our club is to end the stigma around mental health in our community and create a safe environment where students can come, feel comfortable talking about their issues, and learn new strategies to handle the stress we are currently facing. As a whole, we want to raise more awareness about a reality in today’s society, and how we as teenagers, can help each other. At the end of the day, we know better than most how isolated, even with all the support, teenagers are feeling.  At this point, a sense of unity in our obstacles is what FDR represents, it also what we need.

Students should join if they want to be more aware on how to tackle any mental health issues they have, or if they want to turn their increasing stress into greater productivity, within school and life in general. It’s basically a first step in promoting mental wellness. If you’re someone that is interested,  you can join by attending meetings on Tuesdays in room 413, when announced during the daily announcements.