Students join forces to make big impact

Anna Wiest, The Daily Item, Sunbury, Pa.
Updated ·2 min read

Dec. 12—DANVILLE — Groups of students from Danville and Southern Columbia met recently to discuss how they could better promote school safety and mental health across both districts.

This week marks eleven years since the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

Officers of Danville High School's Students Preserving Mental Health (SPM) Club met with officers of Southern Columbia's Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) club Monday.

Megan Geise, advisor of the SPM club and principal at the Danville Primary School, said the students would discuss how they could take action at both schools.

"Southern Columbia's group reached out about getting together to talk about better promoting school safety," Geise said.

Andrea Borys, advisor of Southern Columbia's SAVE Club, said she had been in contact with Geise for about a year and half, but this was the first time their students had the chance to meet.

SAVE is a national organization with around 4,500 groups across the country and 129 in Pennsylvania. Southern Columbia's club is one of the nine schools on the National Youth Advisory Board, according to Borys.

Three officers from Danville's group — Quinn Aikens, Garrett Hoffman and Riley Warriner, all juniors — attended the meeting.

Five officers made the trip from Southern Columbia, including seniors Anesa Brown and Lizzie Hodder, juniors Jon Patterson and AJ Wetzel and sophomore Karleigh Sommers.

Brown discussed SAVE's big event that takes place every year, their "save a life" walk.

"This is our huge thing we do every year," she said. "We host K through 12 and have them walk laps and then go to stations that have to do with mental health and stopping violence."

Aikens discussed SPM's mission and said she thought the group might be able to expand their efforts.

"We focus a lot on mental health," she said. "But I think we could do more with bullying."

Brown suggested the schools partner to host an event.

"It would be cool for all of us to get together to show that we are two schools, but we are working on the same stuff," she said.