CARES, volunteers put ‘Signs Up’ at schools
By Dubois County CARES
Dubois County CARES staff and recruited volunteers visited area high schools and middle schools during the first weeks of the new school year to show encouragement and support to students. The activity was dubbed “Signs Up!”
Assistant CARE-ordinator Martha Rasche and eight volunteers gathered at Northeast Dubois Junior/Senior High School on the morning of Aug. 6, the first day of the new school year, holding signs bearing messages including “You’ve Got This!,” “We Love the Jeeps!,” and “It’s a Good Day to Have a Good Day!” A few school staff members, including School Resource Officer Tim Lampert and custodian Jeff Chatman, joined the CARES group in greeting students, many of whom responded with smiles, hellos and thank-yous.
Volunteer Luckie Hopf posted herself at the door where buses make their drop-offs. That way, she could hug several of her grandchildren as they arrived.
At Southridge High and Middle schools, meanwhile, CARES Director Candy Neal, Huntingburg Mayor Neil Elkins and four other volunteers welcomed the Raiders with signs in both English and Spanish. High School Principal Greg Gogel and SRO Andy Hammack helped out.
“We did a lot of cheering and screaming, I’ll tell you that!” Neal said.
She said the Signs Up! initiative was developed after looking at some local results from the 2025 Indiana Youth Survey.
Dubois County students in grades six through 12 take that survey every year. It is mainly about substance use and mental health topics. A few of the questions relate to the students’ interactions with neighbors – specifically, whether neighbors notice when the student does a good job and let the student know, if the neighbors are proud of the student, and if the neighbors encourage the student to do his or her best.
Year after year, more than half of Dubois County students in nearly all of the grades surveyed answer those questions in the negative.
“You might not realize it, but when adults interact with young people in a positive way, that is a protective factor for them,” Neal said. “The more protective factors adolescents have, the less likely they are to start experimenting with alcohol and drugs.”
She hopes students’ main takeaway from Signs Up! is the realization that “there are people in your community who care about you. And we wanted to encourage them to have a great school year, one day at a time.”
On Aug. 11, about 20 volunteers spread out to Jasper High School, Jasper Middle School and Holy Trinity Catholic School’s east campus. Among the volunteers were collaborators from Mentors for Youth, Dubois County Young Life and some local churches.
The Signs Up! campaign didn’t affect only the students. At the middle school, a boy asked two of the volunteers if he could give them a hug. “That really got me,” Mary Lou Beyke, one of those volunteers, said the next day. “I just get choked up every time I think about it.”
Signs Up! at Forest Park Junior and Senior High School took place Aug. 21. There, about 15 volunteers, including school staff and a group of eight Ferdinand residents, covered the three entrances. One staff member spontaneously caught the spirit of the event and came outside with “You Are Awesome!” jotted on a piece of notebook paper.
Emily Hauser, who teaches English as a New Language and Spanish, was thrilled to see some signs in Spanish. She has some ENL students who are struggling, she said, and thought the signs would mean something to them.
Hauser greeted a few students in Spanish. One boy responded by smiling and repeatedly chanting “Yes, we can!” in Spanish, as if he were at a soccer match.
CARES staff took note that whatever the language, their message of support landed with the students.
Some adolescents at all of the schools, of course, rushed by, heads down, probably wishing they could be invisible.
“That’s to be expected,” Neal said, “especially as this was the first year for this activity. When we do it again in the future and start to normalize it for the students, more of them will interact with us.”
The Dubois County Coalition for Adolescent Resilience and Empowerment Strategies works through youth clubs, community activities and a variety of resources for the betterment of adolescents. CARES has student clubs at all of the local high schools this school year and also plans to do some work specifically with eighth-graders. For more information about the coalition or to join its efforts, call 812-827-8464.
