HEART is a new USUE club for emotional awareness.

This archived article was written by: Morgan Verdi

USU Eastern’s Madison Woodward and Kira Tadehara teamed up to create the HEART Club. HEART, which stands for helping everyone at risk together, will be the new sanctuary for anyone and everyone going through difficult times.

The club was started after a tragic event occurred on campus. Observing the sadness of students on campus, as well as in the community, Woodward and Tadehara wanted to make a change. Woodward said, “We always hear how this community is sad.
We don’t want that. We want to help people. We have all gone through a time when we felt alone. Many of us experience depression or anxiety as well as feelings of hopelessness. We want people to know they aren’t alone in how they feel. We have amazing counselors on campus, but students need to have a support group as well, something more than just them and a counselor. That’s why we decided to start HEART.”

The HEART club plans to go beyond bringing emotional support to students. Woodward said, “We will be doing everything from supporting one another at school events, to providing food for students who can’t afford it.”

The HEART Club has 12 students signed up just from word of mouth. Woodward said, “We haven’t even advertised and we already have a great response. The number of people grows each day.” HEART will reach out not only to college students at USU Eastern, but to the community as well.

Woodward continued, “We want to go to schools in the community and have assemblies to help people see they aren’t alone. We have talked to the high school personally and they are letting us hold an assembly to talk to students about depression, anxiety and other things that we all face.

“We are going to share our stories with them. We also want to go into the middle and elementary schools as well because we think it’s very important to talk to younger children. Heaven knows where some of us would be if we had gotten the help we needed at a young age. Knowing you have someone there to support you can make all the difference in a persons life.”

Woodward and Tadehara hope to see happier people as a result from the club. She said, “we want to make a difference. We want to see happier people not only at the college, but in the community as well.” The HEART club is for everyone who wants to join. They will meet every other Wednesday evening. For more information, contact Darrin Brandt at 435-613-5670 or [email protected].