The Friendship Bench Blog
Friendship Bench Dedicated to First Ontario College, Niagara College
The Lucas Fiorella Friendship Bench unveiled its iconic yellow bench and #YellowIsForHello student mental health campaign at Niagara College this week, which makes it the first of its kind dedicated to a Canadian college. This is the third such unveiling...
How To Talk To Friends Suffering With Mental Illness
More and more studies point to the link between strong friendships and good mental health. A study from the Journal of The National Medical Association in the US, for example, discovered that those people with “insufficient perceived social support were most likely to...
A Day to Remember as the First Friendship Bench is Unveiled
Yesterday was an important milestone for The Friendship Bench, as the first benches were unveiled in Ottawa, Ontario. We chose Carleton University as the location for the inaugural unveiling for a number of reasons. First, it was the university Lucas Fiorella, the...
Share Your Story with The Friendship Bench
At The Friendship Bench, part of our goal is to raise awareness of youth and teen mental health issues that can lead to suicide, including stress, anxiety, and depression, and to help remove the stigma around it. In addition to the various programs we will be putting...
10 Suicide Stories With An Incredible Happy Ending
NOTE: This is a blog post that originally appeared on Listverse. Note that in nearly every case, there was a complete stranger ready to help, whether it was in-person, online, or using social media. This is in keeping with the spirit of The...
Dealing With Stress On Campus
Are you Experiencing Unhealthy Stress? Entering post-secondary education is a stressful experience for everyone, regardless of ethnicity, income, or gender. Stress is part of life and isn't always a bad thing. That said, there is definitely unhealthy stress that...
Common Misconceptions About Suicide
One of the battles The Friendship Bench was created to fight is the silence that all too often prevents students suffering with heightened anxiety, loneliness, and depression from seeking the assistance they need. Despite educational institutions investing time and...
The Friendship Bench Achieves First Fundraising Target
We’re thrilled to announce that after just two days, The Friendship Bench has reached its first milestone of $10,000 in donations! We wish to thank everyone who helped achieve this goal by sharing information about the program and donating to the cause. The...
Welcome to the Friendship Bench
The Friendship Bench was inspired by my son, Lucas Fiorella. On October 12, 2014, while in his second year of university, Lucas took his own life. The news was a complete shock to our family and friends. Lucas did not show signs of what we would consider “clinical...