Maya Gold Foundation & Teen Mental Health First Aid
By Noah Solano
The Maya Gold Foundation was created after the heartbreaking death of a New Paltz High School Student (Maya Gold), who took her own life. This organization was launched by her parents, Elise Gold and Matthew Swedloff. Some of New Paltz Middle School's Seminar Olympics teams are playing for the Maya Gold Foundation. This foundation's mission, as stated on their website is, “to empower youth to access their inner wisdom and realize their dreams”.
One way they are doing this is through Teen Mental Health First Aid (or tMHFA), an evidence-based training program that teaches students in 10-12 grade how to recognize and assist peers in mental health and substance abuse challenges or crises. This program is done by trainers certified by the National Council for Mental Well Being. As of December 2022, the Maya Gold Foundation had trained over 300 teenagers in tMHFA. They are currently working on bringing this program to teenagers in surrounding counties. It is offered in community settings during after school hours and in both public and private schools during the school day. The Maya Gold Foundation can be contacted to work on bringing this incredible program to your school.
Within the duration of this course, teenagers will learn many important skills, including how to talk with a friend about mental health, when and how an adult should be involved in a situation, where to find professional mental health help and resources on mental health, how to recognize warning signs that a friend may be going through a mental health or substance abuse challenge/crisis, and how to apply the tMHFA Action Plan to assist a friend who is experiencing this.
If you are interested in being a part of the Maya Gold Foundation, you can sign up for the Youth Action Team here. The Youth Action Team is an important way that the Maya Gold Foundation fulfills their mission of empowering youth by giving young people a voice and a way to directly affect what happens in their communities. All members of this team are a part of two Board committees and give input on the Maya Gold Foundation’s decisions.
Sources: https://www.mayagoldfoundation.org/
School Lunches
By Camille Reid
In this article I interviewed someone to see how they felt about the school lunches. Here are the results:
Me: Do you usually get home lunch or hot lunch?
I usually have home lunch.
Me: Do you like school lunches? why/why not?
Depends, but most of them are good.
Me: Do you think students should have to pay for school lunches?
I understand why people have to pay, so that the school can make the money they spend.
Me: Do you think the school has enough vegetarian options?
I think the school has a decent amount of vegetarian options, there are cheese, egg salad and PB&J sandwiches, but more variety would be nice.
(The person I interviewed preferred to stay anonymous)