The Healthy Teen Project

2024 What Makes You Healthy At/Media Contest Is Now Open

The What Makes You Health Teen Mental Health Initiative

Get Inspired. Win Prizes. Be An Influencer. Help Others.

Ways You Can Participate:

Be part of the media team to spread the word.
Write and article about mental health challenges and solutions. You may get published.
Tell your afterschool programs and teachers about the contest to get them involved.
Enter the contest. You may win $5000.

Contest Steps

High School Students on the West Coast of Florida enter by clinking the link Register For A Free Book. You will receive a free ebook of The Teen Guide To Health, by Leslie Glass.
Read the book. It’s easy and informative and fun to read. Choose a topic that interests you.
Grab, a friend or friends, and create and art or media project that illustrates your message. Fun and positive messaging by teens for teens is what we’re looking for. Photography, Video, TikTok, Posters Galore, Story, Essay, Cartoon. Build a brain that lights up with healthy activities. You name it.
Click on the Submit Your Entry button below. You can submit more than one entry.

We will judge your submissions for artistic quality, imagination, and positive messaging for teens. You don’t have to be fancy. Some of our winners have used technology, others have created paintings, still others have used nothing more than pen and ink and colored pencils. You can sing, dance, show highlight whatever skills you have in any format.

This project joins art and education, bringing crucial health and lifestyle information to teens who don’t receive this kind of comprehensive information anywhere else.

Deadline for Entries September 2, 2024

Art Exhibit and Awards Luncheon on November 16, 2024 at Selby Library In Sarasota

Sponsored by Reach Out Recovery and ROR Empowerment, and funded by Rotary Clubs and individual donors, this unique project has brought healthy living and life skills information to teens on the West Coast Of Florida. Since 2021

More that 1000 students have participated in the What Makes You Healthy mental health initiative
20 high school students have received awards.
$24,000 in scholarship prizes for best positive mental health messaging by and for teens.
Winning teens have used their experience as part of their college applications and to mentor others both in high school and college.

The What Makes You Healthy project has been a teen mental health initiative of Rotary District 6960. Rotary Clubs of Sarasota Bay, Sarasota Sunrise, Sarasota Gulf Coast, Sarasota Downtown, and Rotary District 6960 donated more than 1500 copies of the book.

The unique project provides copies of The Teen Guide To Health and a curriculum to school clubs and afterschool programs. School clubs and art teachers can choose which one-hour curriculum to learn the content. Students choose a subject from the book that interests them, create art projects to mentor other students, and submit their entries to Reach Out Recovery for judging. This project joins art and education, bringing crucial health and lifestyle information to teens who don’t receive this kind of comprehensive information anywhere else. Students don’t have to be in a school or afterschool program to participate.

2023 Winners

The 2023 High School Art/Media Contest

On November 5th, 2023 the awards luncheon was held at the ART AVENUE gallery where 60 students, teachers, family members shared an exciting lunch program that included speakers, Carrie Seidman from the Herald Tribune, Leslie Glass, 2022 first prize winner Olivia Lee, awards and cash prizes presented by Stacy Ridenour, Chairman of the Sarasota Bay Club Foundation and a special piano and violin performance by Alex and Paul Sykes, the gallery owners.

In 2023, 450 students from high school schools and after school programs including Healthy Teens of Manatee, Unidos Now, Boys and Girls Clubs, Suncoast Science Center, Youth Opera of Sarasota, North Port High School, Rotary Interact Club of Venice High School, Riverview High School, State College of Florida Collegiate High School, Pine View High School, and Sarasota High School participated. All students said they had learned things they didn’t know about brain development and healthy living and recommended the book to their teachers and parents. Many said creating the art projects around the book’s subject has been life changing.

More Favorite 2023 Entries

Teen Guide To Health

Teen Guide To Health is the resource used for the “What Makes Me Healthy” High School Art/Media Contest on the West Coast Of Florida sponsored by Reach Out Recovery and funded by Rotary Club of Sarasota Bay Foundation and other donors interested in the Rotary Teen Mental Health Initiative.

AUTHOR

Leslie Glass

Now more than ever before students, their parents and teachers need a simple roadmap of healthy living to guide them on their journey of growing up safe, confident, and competent to meet life’s inevitable challenges. I wrote The Teen Guide to Health so every teen and parent can have the tools to be all right no matter who or where they are.

Friends Of The Healthy Teen Initiative

2022 First Prize Winner is Olivia Lee from Venice High School.

2022 Winners

Praise For The Healthy Teen Project

100 teens at RYLA commented that their 21/2 hour spring 2024 program was impactful and exciting. "We learned that we're not alone with our fears and stress, and there are tools we can use for emotional challenges."

Hearing about the experiences of other teens made me feel that I'm not the only one struggling even though I get A's. It made me want to help others and stop using social media.

There was so much in the book that was new to me. In the physical section, my whole class thought exercise was all you needed for good health. I didn't know that social, physical, and emotional were all connected, or that the human brain is not fully developed until the age of 25.

Praise For The Secret World Of Recovery

The Secret World of Recovery is a documentary that anyone dealing with addiction and recovery issues should see. Lots of important information about what recovery really means and how people get into long term sobriety. I recommend this very highly to people who want to know more about dealing with alcoholism and addiction in the family.
5.0 out of 5 stars Important film!

We watch this DVD in our facility. The clients really enjoy it and it makes for quality discussions. The Secret World of Recovery is informative, interesting and refreshing.The educational pieces are engaging and appropriate for our clients. It is inspiring and it instills hope, laughter and fun into the hard work of recovery.
5.0 out of 5 stars Great DVD for anyone including Treatment Facilities.

This was a great DVD that we watched as a group session. Everyone commented that they got a lot out of the film, and many said they wished they could have a similar experience with their parent.
5.0 out of 5 stars This was a great DVD that we watched as a group session.

Very good and well-produced video about recovery. It gives a general description of life after the beginning of sobriety that I think would be especially helpful for family members.
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good and well-produced video about recovery.

Great video, I show it in my substance treatment groups.
5.0 out of 5 stars Good group material.

This truly shows that life starts with recovery!
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars.

The 8 Cs That Help Me Be All Right Coloring Book

Teen Guide To Health

Find Your True Colors In 12 Steps Expanded Edition

100 Tips For Growing Up My 20 Years of Recovery