From October 20th until October 27th Pieta House, an Irish non-profit organization focusing on preventing suicide and self-harm by providing a free therapeutic professional approach, is encouraging you to take part in FeelGood Week. Through this event they hope to promote wellness and remind you of how good you really can feel, by bringing people together through fun activities and social events. There are many ways to participate, and today Griffith College Law Faculty took part by holding a bake sale on campus.
The Circular spoke with Siobhan Clabby, a Law student in her final year at Griffith College, who participated in the bake sale for Pieta House FeelGood Week.
“We started from 11:00AM and we’ve kept it going since then” she told the Circular at just after 2:00PM on Thursday October 25th, when the brownies and cupcakes had begun to disappear – an obvious success.
When asked about why she wanted to be involved in the bake sale for Pieta House FeelGood Week, Clabby explains I’m involved in a lot of extracurricular activities by the Law Faculty anyway and I’ve been personally bereaved by suicide, so when we decided to do Pieta House I was like “yes, I’ll bake brownies”. It’s a great conversation starter and it’s also fantastic that we’re raising money for them”.
When The Circular pointed out the sign of success by the lack of cakes left on the table, and if she thought this was because many people could connect with mental health issues, she says “Yeah, we had a great feedback. Everyone was coming and it was nice to see people going and then coming back with their friends. People went “oh, it’s for that – yeah sure” or even just donating money and not wanting to take a cake. So just to receive that support was really cool”
“The biggest thing about mental health I think, is that it effects everyone. Everyone is inside their head – it’s where they live everyday”
The Law Faculty at Griffith College holds a bake sale for a chosen charity during the first semester every year. This year it’s Pieta House and last year they raised money for The Innocence Project. When asked about her thoughts on this years charity, Pieta House, Siobhan says “they are a really great charity, they help people that have been affected by mental illness and suicide, people that have friends that are going through those same issues, people that have lost people. They have a helpline you can call which is super approachable”
She continues “the biggest thing about mental health I think, is that it effects everyone. Everyone is inside their head, it’s where they live everyday, but it’s just having the ability to be able to talk to people if you are going through a bad spot or if your friends are. Pieta House is a great starting point to be able to start this conversation – because a lot of people don’t talk and I think that’s the biggest issue. So even today, we’ve had some really cool conversations”
At the end of the day it seems a bake sale can go a long way, “we raised a total of 242.10 yesterday for Pieta House! The Law Faculty did a great job of setting up, and between staff and students we ran a successful event which we are delighted with!” Siobhan Clabby writes in an e-mail to The Circular after the event.
If you yourself want to take part in Pieta House FeelGood Week, there are many ways to show support. All you need to do is get together with someone you care about and organize a FeelGood event. What you do is up to you: whether it is going for a picnic in the park, play football, watch a movie or just talk – what matters is that you’re having a good time and #FeelGood. You can register your event and find inspiration for things to do here.
