Oregon Grantmaking Students Rank Mental Health as Top Concern

Again this year, Scappoose High School students – like hundreds of their peers statewide – who participate in Community 101, a classroom-based program made possible by Oregon Community Foundation donors, ranked mental health and suicide prevention as the most urgent challenge facing their friends, families and neighbors. We asked them why. 

This fall, student leaders at Scappoose High School looked around their small, forested town in Columbia County, 20 miles northwest of Portland, and thought hard about the problems that need fixing. Like hundreds of their peers statewide, they concluded that one issue outranks all others that trouble their school, families and community.

“All my friends, most of my peers, either they know someone that struggles with mental health or suicide, or they themselves are struggling with it,” said senior Allison Brown, 17.

Mental health ranks as the top concern among nearly 1,000 students in 15 Oregon counties and every region of the state who participate in Community 101, a classroom-based program supported by Oregon Community Foundation donors. Now in its 27th year, Community 101 enables students to create their own independent “foundations” and learn how they can change their communities for the better through grantmaking and volunteering.

Scappoose High School students Allison Brown, left, and Chloe Tetz serve community members at a 2024 Veterans Day Breakfast hosted by Community 101 students.

Each Community 101 school receives $5,000 to $10,000 that students award to one or more local nonprofits of their choosing. The roughly 20 OCF donors who make Community 101 possible in 40 Oregon schools and school districts are investing twice: In nonprofits that serve Oregon communities, and in young Oregonians, who through Community 101 build lifelong skills in communication, critical thinking and leadership. 

The pandemic’s lingering impact

The choices that Community 101 students make are a window into how young Oregonians see their communities and which challenges they believe deserve the most attention. 

In 2009, when OCF started tracking data, just one Community 101 school (Sisters High School) mentioned mental health in its mission statement. By 2015, more than one-quarter of Community 101 schools (28%) were focused on the topic. 

Then came COVID-19 in 2020, which forced school and social gatherings to a halt, disrupting and isolating kids and teens in their formative years. Student interest in mental health soared; in 2022, nearly two-thirds of Community 101 schools (65%) chose mental health as their focus. 

Every year since 2020, more Community 101 schools have chosen to address mental health than any other community challenge. On a Friday in November, Triison Meza and his peers in teacher Kristen Hagen’s leadership class at Scappoose High were eager to explain why. 

Meza was 10 years old when pandemic closures cut him off from friends and made him feel emotions that he didn’t know how to deal with, he said. Now 14 and a freshman, Meza wants his peers to understand that mental health struggles are not uncommon, and that help is available.

“I’ve always had a tough time just kind of sitting with my thoughts, so during COVID, I started, like, replaying everything I could have done better, and kind of thinking lesser of myself. And that just kept diminishing myself lower and lower until it started getting, like, bad,” he said.

“I started to get really bad anxiety and really bad depression. One night, I actually told my mom, and we had a really deep heart-to-heart, and the next week she organized a therapy appointment. I started going there regularly, and I still do sometimes when I’m feeling anxious. But it really lessened after I got help and I knew that I wasn’t alone.”

Samantha Sparkman, 15, a sophomore who was in middle school during the pandemic, said it had a lasting impact on “how young people are, mentally, today.” 

“I noticed some of my friends, when COVID happened, they changed so drastically, like, some got into drugs. And I feel like all that has led to who they are now, and to having mental health problems,” she said. “We were so little. We were still developing.” 

Root causes and rejecting taboo

While pivotal, fallout from the pandemic isn’t the only factor driving Community 101 students statewide to rank mental health above other community challenges. 

Guided by classroom teachers using the Community 101 curriculum, students learn that social problems stem from root causes, such as untreated mental health conditions, and build on each other. The Scappoose students considered focusing on drug and alcohol addiction or child abuse. Ultimately, they decided that by addressing mental health, they could help alleviate those problems too. 

Today’s teens are also more willing to talk openly about mental health and push for solutions than previous generations, said Katie Dearing, a former high school social studies teacher who directs the Community 101 program for OCF.

“It’s not taboo for Gen Z to talk about mental health, whether that’s their own struggles or other people’s,” Dearing said. “It’s not a shameful thing to talk about being in therapy or having a bad mental health day. This new generation of young adults is really sifting through it and taking responsibility for figuring things out.” 

Donors enable students to improve their communities

Community 101 was begun by the PGE Foundation, which turned over program management to OCF in the mid-2000s but continues to provide major financial support, along with several OCF Donor Advised Funds and The Ford Family Foundation.

More donors would enable Community 101 to expand to more communities and increase the amount that schools can award to nonprofits. The maximum amount per school has recently grown from $5,000 to up to $10,000, to make the application process more worthwhile for nonprofits and to better reflect present-day costs.

“Five thousand dollars is not what it was 27 years ago,” Dearing said.

Community 101 is used mostly by high schools but also operates in elementary and middle schools. During the 2023-24 school year, 897 students in grades 3-12 distributed $166,000 to 81 community nonprofits. A few examples:

At Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, students focused on protecting the environment with grants to nonprofits including Rogue Climate and Wild Rivers Land Trust.

Stoller Middle School students in Portland supported Rose Haven, a day shelter and community center that serves displaced women and children.

Riddle High School students prioritized survivors of domestic violence and child abuse, directing their giving to CASA of Douglas County, Peace at Home and similar groups.

At Cascades Academy in Bend, students supported the Fresh to You mobile food pantry.

And in Union County, Imbler High School students enabled Eastern Oregon Health and Wellness to purchase a refrigerator and dishwasher for people in rehabilitation houses. 

Insisting on better mental health

Oregon ranks as one of the worst states in the country at addressing residents’ mental health needs, based on the share of people who report having a mental illness and their ease of accessing care, The Oregonian reported last year. Among Oregon youth ages 12 to 17, more than one in five (21%) reported having a mental illness.

The Scappoose students say that must change. They’re currently seeking grant applications from nonprofits in Columbia County and Portland that can contribute to “a decline in suicide rates and an increase in awareness across all age levels for improving access to personal mental health resources,” according to the Community 101 mission statement the students wrote together.

In November 2024, Scappoose High School leadership students who are part of Community 101 hosted a Veterans Day Breakfast for community members and their families who have served in the military.

“Something that I feel like we need to do for our community and just kind of everywhere is normalizing mental issues and struggles. Because everybody thinks it’s a sign that you’re weak, that it’s not normal. Like, what are my peers going to think of me?,” said senior Hannah Hendrix, 18. “I think if it was normalized, people would reach out more, and everybody could get the help like they need.”

Sparkman, her classmate, said teens need more options for connecting with counselors and therapists.

“There are definitely a lot of kids for who, it’s like, hard to talk about it, and they feel like they can’t get help because they’re scared to ask their parents. Or if they do ask, they’re going to get in trouble for it or something. So hopefully, with Community 101 and us giving to mental health nonprofits, that will help kids have easier access to getting that help,” she said.

If he could correct one thing that people get wrong about mental health, it would be that “it’s something that’s visible,” added junior Brayden Miller, 17.

“A lot of mental health is behind the scenes, and people become really good at covering up. A lot of people struggle with mental health.”

Growing Oregon’s next generation of leaders and community-builders: what you can do

• Watch a short video about Community 101 or read more about it in this program overview.
• Connect with your OCF donor relations officer to learn how you can support Community 101 in more Oregon schools.
• If you’re not already an OCF donor, connect with a philanthropic adviser to explore options for giving.  
• Donate to the Community 101 Fund here.
• If you'd like to learn more about Community 101 and how to support the program, contact Katie Dearing, Community 101 Coordinator.