To help students and the community battle stress, the Marshall University Yeager Leadership Institute will host events this week and next to teach healthy ways to manage it.

“College-age students are at the highest risk to develop (mental) health problems, so we wanted to promote awareness about that, and with it being Stress Awareness Month, it was something we could highlight,” said Kennedy Snavely, a junior biology major and member of the Yeager Leadership Institute.

The events, yoga at Buskirk Field April 19 at 4 p.m., a donut event at the Memorial Student Center April 22 from 12 to 2 p.m and a DIY event for stress balls on Buskirk Field April 24 from 12 to 2 p.m., are part of an outreach project of the group.

Members of the Institute, which is made up of students in Marshall’s Yeager program, choose outreach projects every year to take on an issue and promote it on campus, and this year members focused on promoting mental health and ways for college students to take care of themselves.

“With the focus on mental health, a lot of what came up in our panels was the amount of stress that goes along with that and how detrimental it can be on your mental health if you do not have healthy ways of coping,” said Langley Sonnenberg,a junior economics and finance double major and member of the Yeager Leadership Institute.

“We wanted to come up with a way that we could bring awareness to the fact that it is Stress Awareness Month and provide some fun activities,” Sonnenberg said.

With college students being at a higher risk of developing stress, the group wants to promote healthy ways to combat that, Snavely said. She said she hopes people attending the events will understand the importance of taking care of oneself.

“I hope they are able to recognize that it is important to take time for yourself every week, even if it is not something you do daily, but just to give yourself a break, to take time for yourself, and that there are healthy ways to manage stress,” Snavely said.

Sonnenberg said she hopes the events unite people so they understand they are not alone in the battle against stress.

“I hope that everyone leaves knowing that everyone has stress, and we all go through it differently, and that there are different ways of coping, you just have to find the one that works for you,” Sonnenberg said.

Meredith O’Bara can be contacted at [email protected].