Senior Luke Johnston focused his Grande Project on issues of mental health and addiction. 

“The reason I personally started doing this is because a person in my family, my uncle, has been struggling with addiction most of his adult life, and I always was curious, like what's going on in his head? Why would he make these decisions and hurt his family?”said Johnston.

Johnston interviewed many experts on mental health and addiction in order to craft his essay, which was intended to raise SLUH students’ awareness about the issue.

“Mental health and addiction is not a weakness. It's not a will. It's an actual disease,” said Johnston. “It's like, you have cancer, you have to get treated with it and served in certain ways. If you're addicted to something, you have to get treated. It's not something that is just going to go away.” 

Johnston noted that the issues of mental health and addiction are very common even among SLUH students. 

“One in five kids are struggling with some form of mental illness,” said Johnston. “One thing that most teenage kids can relate to was Juice WRLD dying in 2019. A celebrity, somebody we all look up to, was having a really hard time breaking out of (an addiction).” 

Johnston recommends that SLUH students listen to Juice WRLD’s last album (that was released after his death) since the songs talk about his struggles and give perspective. 

“It gives you a good perspective of somebody that is struggling from addiction, and I want to help people that if they are, it'll give them hope and really, understanding what's actually happening inside of them. And if you aren't, it helps them stay away from substances that could lead to an addiction,” said Johnston.