Mesa Ridge High School students use talents to promote unique text to counseling program

Local high school students are putting their video production skills to practice to help others, as Mesa Ridge High School is a pilot school for a national program helping teens seek counseling in a unique way.

The program allows teens to seek to counsel by texting a number to talk to a licensed counselor on the other side.

“When he first sat us down to do this, he laid them all out on the floor and we were looking at them and I thought it was interesting how many of them I actually related to,” junior Naomi Mullins said.

The KMRG students put together videos featuring real-life scenarios where teens might want to use the line. The inspiration for the videos came from posters advertising the service.

“This is something that we can relate to, first and foremost,” senior Kaleigh Clem said. “This is real.”

The campaign videos address issues like anxiety, fear and loneliness, hoping to let other students know they’re not alone.

“Videos and stuff come across as a joke, especially in a high school setting, so we wanted these to be as serious and relatable as possible,” Clem said.

“It’s quite literally throwing you a literal line, like, ‘Hey, text this number. You don’t have to give your name if you don’t want to,” junior Douglas Reyes said.

“It doesn’t mean that you know, things have gotten very bad, but it’s still nice to have somebody to talk to because you don’t always have that,” Mullins said.

The students said because it’s a text to talk program, created by teens – for teens, they’ve found it much more appealing to their generation.

“It’s connecting to a generation in a better way,” Reyes said.

To use the service students can text “Talk” to 38255.