PEORIA MAGAZINE January 2023

signals that they’re knowledgeable about mental-health issues and are open to contact from individuals in need, according to the Wisconsin Bandana Project website. Project participants are required to complete an interactive suicide prevention program. They also carry resource cards that have contact information for crisis hotlines and other mental-health organizations. According to Wright, the bandanas help signify support and solidarity with peers who might be having a tough go of it, in the classroom or elsewhere. “A lot of students have told us they’d feel more comfortable talking to students their age rather than adults,” said Wright, a 2019 graduate of Metamora Township High School. That student-to-student interaction appears tohavebecomemore important in thewakeof the coronavirus pandemic. Although Green Bandana was founded before COVID-19 became part of the worldwide lexicon, Wright suggested the program is tailor made for the pandemic’s psychological after-effects.

Wright began school at Iowa not long before the virus caused campuses nationwide to shut down. Studentswere subject to remote learning and missed a lot of the extracurricular activities that help form the college experience. Particularly hard hit are Iowa freshmen, said Wright, as COVID dominated their high school years. “A lot of them don’t have a very strong support system,” she said. “They haven’t had what upperclassmen would call ‘normal years.’ A lot of them don’t have a lot of friends, so they don’t have that close-knit group of people they can talk to. “It’s almost been difficult to talk to them. They don’t know how to talk to people. They can’t make eye contact with people.” Green Bandana at Iowa is attempting to overcome that by conducting events such as “glowga,” a glow-in-the-dark yoga session. A 6-foot beach ball and pumpkins were distributed, uponwhich group members and others wrote positivemental-healthmessages. Anight at a local bowling facility was planned.

About 80 Iowa students are on the Green Bandana roster, although Wright said the number of active members tends to be lower. The group’s fundraising efforts are just getting off the ground. “We’re very new to this, sowe’re trying to figure it out,” Wright said. Wright is trying to figure out things for herself, as well, with graduation looming. Until then, she hopes to leave behind a few more green bandanas. “Advocating for mental health is something I will continue to do no matter where I am,” Wright said. “I think that a lot of people have really felt moved by the cause. The (members) over the next five years, they’re going to totally outshine us. We’re figuring out all the bumps for them, and I think it’s going to have a really positive impact.”

Nick Vlahos is a longtime Peoria print journalist and regular contributor to Peoria Magazine

(Back row, second from left) Olivia Wright from Metamora,

vice president of the University of Iowa Green Bandana Project

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