The Counseling Center hosted Find Your Voice, a journaling group to help students have a creative outlet to express their feelings. The first meeting took place Feb. 18.

Laura Hetrick, licensed professional counselor, said, “The main purpose is to have an activity and some therapeutic outlet for students to have after traditional eight to five hours on campus.”

The club aims to promote mental health awareness among students by having them do creative writing based on a prompt given every week. A staff member gave each of the two students who attended a composition notebook and a Sharpie to get started.

“The goal is to basically give people a safe place to talk about any issues they are having, whether it be anxiety or depression or being homesick and to also help students connect with one another on campus,” Hetrick said.

Hetrick said she hopes to get more students involved in the weekly activity.

Hetrick said, “I’m hoping between now and next week maybe we can get the word out but we will take as many as we can.”

Hetrick hopes to develop the communication skills of students who join the journaling group.

“I’m looking forward to seeing if we can grow the group some and also to see the group develop more interpersonal skills with each other. Usually, we see some pretty strong friendships develop with any kind of group work,” Hetrick said.