The Miles & Smiles kickoff event, organized by the school’s Peer Assistant Listeners (PALs) and Endurant Mental Health Club, was last Saturday in the school’s quad from 10:00 a.m.-11 a.m.
Students from PALs, Associated Student Body (ASB), Endurant Mental Health Club and the boys lacrosse team were present to support the event. Therapy dogs greeted students walking into the event, a connection to the Stress Less week activities coordinated by PALs that took place the week before.
“This [event] is raising money for us … to open more mental health … groups and education,” Emma Beckwith (11), co-president of the Endurant Mental Health Club said. “[It’s so] different parts of our community … [can come] together to support something that we all need to advocate for.”
Miles & Smiles is a community challenge organized by students at the school in the Endurant Mental Health Club that aims to use movement and kindness to support mental health awareness. In terms of miles, participants are encouraged to walk, run, bike or swim. Friends and family can pledge money for the cause: for example, a dollar for every mile completed. The other half of the challenge, smiles, involves taking positive action and asking people to pledge for every act of kindness achieved. Rock painting, bracelet making, affirmation cards and card-making stations were set up for students to spread “smiles” to others in the community.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to draw attention to mental health issues and suicide prevention activities in our community and so we’re just supporting [Endurant] and creating opportunities for people to do kind acts and physical activities,” PALs advisor Angela Willden said. “All of those things help support mental health.”
The Endurant Movement was founded by a Torrey Pines family, Neil and Samara Tricarico, after the loss of their son, Anthony “Ant” Tricarico, to suicide. The Endurant Movement, an organization focused on spreading awareness of mental health and neurodiversity, collaborated with PALs to organize Miles & Smiles. The Miles & Smiles challenge will continue through Dec. 31. All funds raised from pledging go directly to support the Endurant Movement.
“[The goal is to encourage] as many people [as possible to pledge] in the giving season, to just raise money for something that’s so important, because it’s really great that at Torrey, we have PALs and we have mental health clubs that know that this is something we need to talk about,” Beckwith said. “But at a lot of other schools, [this is] not as accessible … so [mental health is] even more stigmatized.”
(Emily Chao)
Beckwith worked with Sara Messenger (11), as co-presidents of the Endurant Mental Health Club and both involved in PALs, to coordinate and organize the Miles & Smiles event. PALs also collaborated with ASB and invited various sports teams from the school, including the boys lacrosse team, to join the event. PALs member Shelly Segal (10) describes the atmosphere of the event as united, since “everyone’s here for the same purpose.”
“Obviously I want to support PALs and everything they do … but I also really like what [Endurant is] doing,” Segal said. “I really like how they advocated for teen mental health to not be stigmatized and be something that we can easily talk about. I think that’s really important.”
The idea for Miles & Smiles emerged around Fall Break, and from there, planning and preparation began.
“It was just really great to … see people so passionate about something, and … even though it was so last minute, it was achievable because of people’s passion and determination [in support of] … the message of Endurant,” Beckwith said.
