Active Minds at Baker University is getting active next week to raise awareness about Mental Health Awareness Week on campus.

While Mental Health Awareness Week is recognized nationally from Monday to Oct. 9, Active Minds will only be hosting events Monday through Friday.

“(The events are) a good way to make people aware of the fact that mental awareness is kind of a big deal,” junior Meredith Hodges, president of Active Minds, said.

The group’s theme for Monday, which is National Day Without Stigma, will be Stomp Out Stigma.

The group will be providing blue balloons, blue being the color of mental health awareness, for students to write words, such as stigma or ignorance, before stomping on them at 7:30 p.m. outside Harter Union.

Counseling Center Director Tim Hodges said he really wants Monday to be a way of educating and de-stigmatizing mental disorders.

“Stigma implies that someone who struggles with depression is odd,” he said.

So, the group’s goal Monday is to make people aware that this is not the case with those who have depression or any other mental health disorder.

“We’re trying to help people know about (mental illnesses) so that they don’t make fun of it anymore or are scared,” junior Megan Reid said.

On Wednesday, Active Minds members will be dressing in black and wearing blue ribbons with certain mental health disorders written on them.

Meredith Hodges said the goal is to raise awareness about these disorders by also handing these ribbons out to other Baker students, faculty and staff.

Thursday is National Depression Screening Day, so the group will be offering depression-screening forms in Harter Union.

Students also have the option to complete the form online.

Some of Tim Hodges’ practicum students will also be on hand Thursday and Friday to offer counseling sessions to students.

Throughout the week, the group will have an informational booth set up in Harter Union Lobby, selling $1 blue bracelets and handing out buttons with “1 in 4” on them.

“1 in 4” represents the statistic that one in four Americans have a mental health disorder.

The group’s first big event this year was National Suicide Prevention Week, in early September, but next week is meant to focus on mental health illnesses in general.

“Students who struggle with these things feel alone, feel like an outsider looking in,” Tim Hodges said. “And (this week) is a way of helping them understand they’re not alone.”