UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.— Maggie Cardin, a senior in childhood and early adolescent education major and Presidential Leadership Academy student in Penn State's College of Education, has been affiliated with mental health advocacy groups for nearly a decade, and, for the past three years, she has been working to create a mental health training requirement for educators.
Personal experience
In sixth grade, Cardin lost her only sibling, Phil, to suicide.
“It flipped our community upside down,” said Cardin. “We didn’t know what to do.”
Around that time, others in her school who had suffered losses due to suicide started A Helping Hand, a small, school-based mental-health advocacy club.
Cardin became involved with A Helping Hand in seventh grade, and later, while in high school, worked to spread the club’s message throughout her region.
The group reached out to another local high school, Hempfield, and was invited to present. This was the first time Cardin spoke publicly about the loss of her brother. This also was about the time when A Helping Hand started to evolve into Aevidum.
Aevidum is a student-led mental health advocacy club that exists to raise awareness of the warning signs of depression and suicide among adolescents and young adults and let students know there is someone there for them. The word “Aevidum” is a student-created word that means “I’ve got your back.”