Sixty-three Arizona high school students from 38 schools are taking part in Teen Lifeline's eighth annual Messages of Hope campaign this September, and exactly one of them is from Queen Creek.
Lyla Martinez, a varsity cheerleader at Queen Creek High School, is the town's only participant, according to the Queen Creek Independent. Teen Lifeline says the number of students involved this year is a record.
What the campaign is
Messages of Hope runs during Teen Suicide Prevention Awareness Month in September. The idea is straightforward: students speak to other students, on the theory that a teenager is more likely to hear something difficult from a peer than from an adult.
That theory is the whole basis of the organization behind it. Teen Lifeline runs a peer-to-peer crisis line staffed by trained teenage volunteers, called peer counselors, who answer calls and texts from other teens. It describes itself as the only teen peer hotline in Arizona and among the oldest in the country.
If you need it
Teen Lifeline's crisis line is 602-248-8336 statewide, or 520-327-8336 in southern Arizona. It is free, confidential and staffed around the clock. Texting the same number reaches a peer counselor between 3 and 9 p.m. daily.
