Start with Hello, one word that can make a tremendous difference

On February 6th Hillsborough High School Student Government Members introduced the Start with Hello Program, a part of the Sandy Hook Promise. The following is an excerpt from an article featured on the Hillsborough County Public Schools website.


Hello.

Decades ago, Thomas Edison cemented that word’s legacy as the standard telephone greeting. Years later, Lionel Richie sang a song of the same name. Adele followed with her own chart topper.

Hello.

An easy word to say … but not for everyone.

Some young people struggle with communicating. They’re lonely, isolated, wrestling with depression, combating inner struggles. Sometimes, those battles manifest themselves in horrible, violent and often preventable ways.

That’s the crux behind Start with Hello, a program introduced Tuesday at Hillsborough High School and expected to expand to other Hillsborough County schools in the coming months.

Start with Hello is part of Sandy Hook Promise, an initiative formed after the December 2012 shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut. Twenty students and six adults died that day, including first-grader Dylan Hockley.

His mother, Nicole, held a photo of Dylan on Tuesday as she addressed an auditorium of Hillsborough students.

“This is about you,” she said, urging students to make connections with one another. “It really does start with hello.”

Click here to see the rest of the article on the Hillsborough County Public Schools Website