While Attorneys General are investigating TikTok and its impact on youth mental health, a student in Kentucky has leveraged the social media site to do something about it.
Whitley County High School senior Sophy Jones took inspiration from TikTok to bring the word of God to her classmates, one sticky note at a time, The Times Tribune reports.
“It’s important to have these signs up just to prove that there is pure love in this world,” Jones told the news site. “I hope that when people see this through the school that they will feel as if they are loved and there is more to life.”
Jones and her classmate Evelyn Philpot, members of the student-led Christian group First Priority, recently brought the TikTok trend of sticky note prayer walls to the girls’ bathrooms at Whitley High School to “help spread God’s word” to students who need it most.
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“Our school, along with the middle school, has struggled with suicide,” Jones told WKYT. “And, a lot of people struggle with their mental health.”
It’s an issue that hits close to home for Jones, who said she herself was in a dark place until “God saved me.”
“My goal is to hopefully save someone’s life just like (Jesus) saved mine, while spreading God’s word,” Jones told the Tribune.
The way it works is simple.
“People can just write down a Bible verse or like ‘Jesus loves you,’ for example, and you can either take it with your if you want to keep it as a note, you can repost other ones,” she told WKYT. “They could take that verse and say they want to read it, or we do have Chromebooks at school so they can google the verse.”
Philpot contends it’s already making a difference.
“The other day, I had seen a young female student who had one of the yellow sticky notes with a Bible verse on it that we had wrote, and it just really made my day to know that this is something that people are loving and it’s actually helping them,” Philpot said. “These verses spoke to me, and I feel like they could speak to others.”
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Todd Lawson, director of First Priority, said the girls leveraged what they learned from the organization to build something bigger, and he’s proud of the progress they’ve made.
“With prayer and God, that’s the only answer we got. That’s our only hope,” Lawson said.
The message that “somebody loves me” is powerful, he said.
“I may feel not important at home, I may not feel important to a teacher, I may not feel important to somebody,” he said, “but God loves us and ain’t nothing more important than that.”
Shawna Hughes, Jones’ mother, also praised her daughter’s efforts.
“I’m so incredibly proud of her,” Hughes said. “She has chosen to spread faith.”
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