SAN ANTONIO – A colorful garden of hope debuted at Hemisfair on Friday afternoon. Five hundred pinwheels popped up for Children’s Mental Health Awareness Month.
Clarity Child Guidance Center hopes the pinwheels can encourage parents to talk with their kids about their thoughts and feelings. The center serves children ages 3-17 across South Texas.
Pinwheels can represent childhood, joy and playfulness, and just as pinwheels turn, Clarity said they could also symbolize how children can do the same.
“They can always turn their mental health around with the proper tools and help and support,” said Ciara Sánchez said. Sánchez, Clarity CGC’s marketing and development coordinator. “They can start talking about identifying their emotions instead of, you know, the regular fits or feelings of frustration that they start showing. We can start by asking them to use their words.”
Sánchez said mental health awareness among children in South Texas has become increasingly prominent. Conditions can range from ADHD and anxiety to suicidal ideation, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, among others.
“We have been at capacity for the last three years,” Sánchez said. “It (has) become even more of an issue coming out of COVID. Kids have lost that social interaction. They are isolated. They’re anxious, and then they start going to school and are behind academically.”
The pinwheel garden is located on the south end of the Yaniguana Park at Hemisfair.
Each pinwheel has a message that reads, “Take a pinwheel for Mental Health Awareness Month! Pinwheels remind us that kids can turn their lives around.”
To learn more about the Clarity Child Guidance Center, click here.
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