The Purple Hydrangea Project

The Purple Hydrangea Project is a student-run 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating for mental health awareness in children and teens. In our fight to eliminate the stigma around mental health, we hope to move the community towards an environment of understanding in which everyone can feel safe in reaching out for help and speaking about their mental health struggles without fear of being judged, ignored, or shunned. We plan to fulfill our mission by coordinating and presenting mental health awareness assemblies in elementary, middle, and high schools, making care packages for youth in psychiatric wards, holding holiday toy drives for children that have been diagnosed as emotionally disturbed, publishing a crowd-sourced book of stories of recovery from people all over the country, facilitating a pen pal program for youth all around the world to establish personal connections with one another, enacting a mural in honor of suicide victims, running a website on which we share resources, knowledge, and professional and personal advice on dealing with mental health struggles, and more.