The McDonald Center for Student Well-Being held its first annual Fresh Check Day mental health resource fair Wednesday on Fieldhouse Mall.
Fresh Check Day is a nationwide initiative of the Jordan Porco Foundation aimed at holding these resource fairs on campuses across the country. The organization provides themes for resource tables to introduce students to a variety of information about mental health within a casual environment.
Booths lined all four sides of the Clarke Memorial Fountain, representing an array of university resources with campus organizations including Campus Ministry, the Division of Student Affairs and the University Counseling Center. Graduate programs and student organizations also held tables at the event, which Sarah Besse, the director of the McDonald Center, shared came as part of Graduate Student Appreciation Week. Staff and students also queued for Travelin’ Tom’s Coffee of South Bend.
Explaining the event’s purpose, Besse said, “The event is to raise awareness about mental health and suicide prevention in a more fun, low-barrier way for students to make having conversations more accessible.”
Besse explained that the event was made possible through the McDonald Center’s Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Garrett Lee Smith Grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, a $306,000 grant the Center received in February to support the expansion of mental health and suicide prevention programming at Notre Dame. The grant has been deemed “ND Cares.”
She added that the grant has already helped to support other programming on campus, most recently the launch of the pilot Peer Listening Program and a faculty toolkit, which Besse said provides “more robust information about how to promote well-being in the classroom.”
Chris Conway, director of the University Counseling Center, elaborated on the grant’s impact on the campus community. “We thought we would try to bring it to Notre Dame as part of this Notre Dame Cares Grant to raise awareness and get the community involved in learning about mental health and teaching others,” he said.
Conway noted that through the grant, the McDonald Center has been able to address specific campus challenges, such as increasing engagement of ROTC students with mental health resources.
Besse shared hopes that the Center will better be able to engage with residential communities by building relationships with the wellness commissioners on each dorm’s hall council.
Senior Eyitayo Awe assisted in planning Fresh Check Day as the McDonald Center’s Senior Health and Wellness Fellow. Awe explained that the event and the rest of the Center’s programming revolve around the categories of alcohol education, stress management and generalized stress management, all with the goal of facilitating community engagement and campus discussion surrounding mental health.
Awe also stressed the importance of the Center’s physical space on the second floor of St. Liam Hall, which is home to a break room, massage chairs, lounge areas and fireplaces.
