Tell Me About Your Day tackles mental health with conversation
Organizers want initiative to spread to other campuses
TMAYD, a student initiative that aims to get more students talking to and supporting each other, has gained momentum and funding since its inception following the deaths of freshmen Matthew L. Nehring and Christina E. Tournant earlier this semester.
The name stands for “Tell Me About Your Day,” and the project’s goal is to “make visible the vast support network amongst peers that MIT has [and] give a physical reassurance to students that they are not alone,” according to the project’s GoFundMe web page.
“I started TMAYD because I realized that at MIT it is easy to get caught up in our work,” wrote Izzy Lloyd ’18, one of the project’s founders and organizers. “I think I speak for everyone when I say that we at MIT need to feel togetherness and start reaching out to one another before devastating things happen, as opposed to after.”
Lloyd and Katie Ward ’16 organized TMAYD and have since been recruiting volunteers to help distribute bracelets and business cards. The cards explain that people can indicate that they are available and open to anyone who wants to talk by wearing the wristband. Over the past month, volunteers have been distributing the merchandise in Lobby 7 to students, faculty, and administrators.
TMAYD has accumulated $3,595 in crowdfunding from 94 donors in the span of a month. Lloyd also received the Student Activities Office’s Arthur C. Smith grant for $2,000, which funded the 3,100 TMAYD wristbands and 5,000 business cards that were distributed in Lobby 7. She also received $700 from the Everett Baker Foundation to purchase wristbands for the incoming Class of 2019.
“In the future, we plan on having a TMAYD Facebook page that will feature daily pictures of people wearing the wristbands and a caption that is something about the person’s day,” said Lloyd. “Additionally, we will be ordering laptop stickers (as an answer to the IHTFP laptop stickers) and t-shirts. Lastly, we are working on a video that will help spread the message of TMAYD.”
Lloyd hopes that TMAYD will spread to other college campuses and may give out more bracelets at the Boston Marathon next year.
“I want everyone to be able to physically see that the people around them care and want to hear what they have to say,” Lloyd said to The Tech. “TMAYD is also a reminder to slow down for a little bit each day and connect with someone, be it someone new or a long time friend, about something that doesn’t relate to work.”