Texan Mosaic

by: MATT MOLINAR/Opinion Editor

With February being National Women’s Heart Health Month, students and staff at South Plains College wanted to show their support for the cause by wearing red for a day.

Members of the campus housing department, along with other faculty members at South Plains College, helped spread awareness of heart health by encouraging students and staff to wear red on Feb. 9. They gathered at at 12:30 p.m. in the quad area near the Student Life Center for a picture, taken by Wes Underwood, photographer and communications specialist in the Marketing and Recruitment Office.

“Usually, Texas Tech holds a ‘Wear Red Day’,” explained Kari-Ann Mitchell, residence hall director at Tubb Hall.“National Wear Red Day was on Feb. 5, but since we don’t have a lot of students or faculty on campus, we made our own Wear Red Day.”

Mitchell, along with Reba Underwood, residence hall director of Forest Hall, Stroud Hall, and Frazer Hall, were interested in bringing awareness of health issues to SPC. So they helped organize the day, along with letting others know about the photo gathering.

“We normally don’t do things like this, so we decided to do heart health as sort of a tester for future events,” Mitchell says. “We want to do more things like this to get students, as well as faculty, more involved at SPC.”

As far as Heart Health Awareness Month goes, this was the only event that was planned. However, Mitchell says that faculty have let her know that they would appreciate more events such as Wear Red Day.

“We have other events planned for the month, like ‘Sex in the Dark’, but other than that, we just wanted to test the waters as far as campus events go,” added Mitchell.

In April, Mitchell and Underwood are planning events to bring awareness to sexual assault.

“April is Sexual Assault Awareness month,” Mitchell explained. “So in this month, we want to do the ‘No More Campaign,’ which is like a worldwide campaign. There are some things that housing and Health and Wellness have been trying to put together.”

They also plan on doing the Red Flag Campaign to emphasize the fight against domestic violence in October.

“In the future, as far as February Heart Health month goes, we want to do more with the month,” Underwood says. “We want to do bigger things in support of Heart Health awareness. I think that through different advertising, like the Plainsman Press, we would be able to make those things happen, because more people will know about them.”

Underwood says that a lot more people were wearing red than the people who were in the picture, so they may not have known about that part of it.

“It’s just been a touch-and-go thing,” said Underwood. “I think, with the proper advertising of our different events, we would have more people attending, and we would bring more awareness to our cause.”