At one point or another, everyone experiences difficulties and needs a safe space to recover. Having a group of supportive people who are there for each other can help people feel acknowledged and accepted.

“Honestly, I think Zero Reasons Why is a really big thing in our community, because there’s been less, I want to say suicides or like bad mental health things since they started in 2018. Since they’ve started, they’ve just helped a lot more people. They started originally because of loss due to suicide in 2018, and since then, there’s been less and less [suicides],” Zoe Tarvin, 10, ZRW member, said.

As Tarvin explains, ZRW began in 2018, and this was because of the suicide crisis that took place at the time. The name Zero Reasons Why was inspired by the 2017 show “13 Reasons Why”, which is about a teen girl who commits suicide.

According to the ZRW website, “Zero Reasons Why is driven by teen activists who want to see mental health conversations elevated and the suicide rate amongst their peers reduced. Whether serving on one of our Teen Councils, being a digital advocate on social media, or sharing their perspective and why

they care, teens are at the center of our efforts to remove the stigma of mental health.”

Suicide prevention programs had previously existed, but this was the first to be mainly run by teenagers themselves. This allows adolescents to connect better with ZRW because many teenagers feel more comfortable talking to people their own age who might understand more.

“A lot of people are confused about what Zero Reasons Why is. So many people think it means there’s zero reasons why anybody should commit suicide. That’s not it. It’s zero reasons why anybody should struggle alone. So I think it actually brings a lot more awareness to how we can be there for people,” Amie Mikhael, school social worker, ZRW representative, said.

Realizing the true meaning and goal behind ZRW allows students to understand the goal behind the club and better identify with it.

“I feel like one thing we can work on is really getting more people involved, because it’s really small, especially in our school right now, so we need a lot more people in it and just to get the word out there,” Addelyn Horne, 12, ZRW member, said.

Currently, the ZRW club is working on growing their community and bringing more attention to the new club format thought of this year by the countrywide ZRW.