We are excited to share our Rock Solid Youth Team of the San Juan Island Prevention Coalition (SJIPC) and our school photographer; Mark Gardner printed valuable resources on the back of all Middle and High student ids. We are serving our Friday Harbor Middle School (FHMS) and Friday Harbor High School (FHHS) students, nearly 475! An idea in the making for a few years finally becomes a reality with the collaboration of community members.
Rock Solid wanted to put essential resources in the palm of their peers, and the idea to print these resources on the back of every FHMS and FHHS school student ID was born! With the permission of their Principal, Rock Solid started to explore ways to make this happen. Thankfully, one of our SJIPC Board members, Court Bell, a former Principal himself, was supportive of the idea and offered to help fund such a venture. Mark Gardner found a photo lab that was able to print both sides of the student ids instead of just the usual one side. This ability eliminated the need to buy an expensive printer for the project and thankfully reduced the cost, as well.
Mark Gardner also stepped up to absorb the costs of these extra printing fees, as he, too, sees the benefit of our youth having these resources for Suicide Prevention and Escape the Vape hotlines and chat-lines readily available for our students. Rock Solid acknowledges Court Bell because he was the first one willing to financially support this idea when Rock Solid shared it at a Board of Trustees meeting last summer, and it got the wheels in motion.
Rock Solid has learned, it only takes one person to believe in your idea to help build momentum. We are also grateful to our school photographer, Mark Gardner, for his time, dedication to this project, and financial support to help us achieve this goal. We couldn’t have done this without Mark’s full support! So, when you see Mark, smile and say thank you. Mark has been our school district’s photographer for many years and has a photo studio in Anancortes. photographybymarkgardner.com
