I am Gabriel Rocha and currently a senior at Holliston High School. I play for the boys varsity soccer team and am a co-leader at the Jesus Club here at Holliston High. It's always been my goal to be able to make an impact with an action, so i'm beyond excited to be doing this project that focuses on the things that are important to me.
Our community needs to do a better job at recognizing when students are going through mental health issues. I’ve seen first hand people being denied or neglected of their struggles just because they are “too young” to know struggle. This stereotype has to be removed from people’s heads because it’s not factual and it can make it even harder for students to reach out for help. Society's neglect of adolescent mental health needs to be fixed. This is important to me because when I went through my own struggles, there were times where I didn’t wanna speak up because I thought my feelings were invalid.