Hope Squad is a suicide prevention program. It is made up of students that were nominated by their peers who are friendly and understanding. One of the sophomore students that was nominated was Jenna Polking. 

 “I was surprised to be nominated but it makes me grateful that people were caring and thought of me,” sophomore Jenna Polking said.

In Hope Squad they discuss ways to make mental health a comfortable topic with students. They want students to know they have people available to communicate their feelings with.

“It makes me more aware of being a light to others and helping people throughout the day,” Polking said.

A group of students who were nominated to join Hope Squad recently went to the Empower Summit. There they learned different coping mechanisms that they could implement on students in need of help. 

“We talked about ways that we can help the school and things we can do to help people feel more comfortable talking about mental health,” Jenna said. 

This group has a wide range of students from a variety of sports and clubs. More students around the school are able to be open about their problems with these nominated students. 

“Jenna is very good at listening and helping out other people in cross country, so I could see that she would be successful in helping people outside of that as well,” cross country coach Jordan Fuglestad said. 

In cross country an award called the Wolf Award is given to an individual that shows leadership through: selflessness, hard work, commitment, and compassion. Polking was a recipient of this award. 

“Jenna is all of those things, especially selflessness. I would say it is one of her biggest traits,” Fuglestad said. 

Being a part of Hope Squad is just a small factor that shows the larger scale of Polking’s positive behavior towards others.