Introduction

Hello everybody!

For those of you who don't know, the Love Out Loud Campaign is a campaign started and run by students, reaching out to students and the surrounding community of San Luis Obispo.

The Love Out Loud Campaign aims to raise awareness about the depression, self-injury, and suicide that affects our generation. According to the University of Michigan, one in seven college students suffers from depression, and it has become the number one disability in the world. Suicide has also become the third leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 and 24. Our hope for this campaign is to encourage communication, creative self expression, and create a safe environment where students and other community members feel safe to share their personal struggles, thoughts, and experiences about these issues.

Through this campaign we hope to educate, inform, and transform the Cal Poly campus and community into one that is knowledgeable, tolerant, and supportive; a campus which doesn't simply accept what they have heard about these topics, but one which changes the norms surrounding depression, suicide, and self-injury. By opening communication and encouraging creative outlets, the Love Out Loud Campaign will help those who may feel hopeless or alone to find and establish a foundation of safety and love.

Though this begins with Cal Poly, our hope is to create a larger community that reaches out and touches the hearts of anyone who either deals with these matters personally or has experienced them with friends, family, co-workers, or any other person in their lives. This project—rooted in hope—encourages people to come together, no matter where they are at in life, so that love may spring up everywhere.

From now on we will be posting updates, videos, comments, and any sort of thought that comes to mind on this blog. Please feel free to leave love and support (or comments and constructive criticism) for us on this blog.

We love our supporters and can't wait to see what this campaign, along with these six amazing women, can accomplish.

Please visit our website at www.LoveOutLoudCampaign.com and become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheLoveOutLoudCampaign

Let us hear from you! And remember, you are loved!!

With Love,
Rachel