PHOENIX — It's in a set of bathrooms in the back of Vista del Sur Accelerated Academy, where Keely Lotz wanted to see color, inspiration and positivity.
"I want to make sure everybody feels safe here," Lotz said.
Lotz, who's in sixth grade at the school, first approached her principal last year with a detailed plan of how to do just that.
Choosing to spread positive messages in the bathrooms for a specific reason:
"I knew that's where a lot of people went to cry," Lotz said.
Lotz, along with the art club at the school, started brainstorming the right words that could make a difference.
"We all sat around and thought of phrases that might help us and other people," Lotz said.
Now, a bright orange "Always remember: You matter, you belong here, you're doing great, and you can do anything" is painted on one bathroom stall.
Another reads in lime green paint, "Where there is darkness there is light"
Those phrases are among their finished work, painted in both the boys' and girls' bathrooms near the school's courtyard.
One of Lotz's favorites: "A mirror doesn't define you," is painted in black on the white wall between the girls' bathroom mirrors.
"I feel like being able to see positive images like just when you're using the bathroom, like it'll really help kids feel better about themselves," Megan Garis, an eighth-grade student who helped with the project, said.
It was a friend who died by suicide that motivated Lotz last year to take action to help with prevention.
"I lost my friend Kailia (Posey) in May, and it was heartbreaking. It was all over the pageant community, and we did the NAMI walk in her name," Lotz said.
As Lotz and her family continued to look for ways to make a difference, Lotz became a student ambassador for the Uvalde Foundation for Kids and used the bathroom murals as her service project.
Lotz says it was not understanding why Posey died by suicide that motivated her to work to help others.
"I wanted to make sure that it wouldn't happen again," Lotz said.
Students have taken notice of the messages since they were completed in November.
"It has had the impact that it was intended for," Jessica Epacs, principal at Vista del Sur Accelerated Academy said. "And that was the positive self-talk, the positive phrases to be uplifting. It's happening, we get to see it in our kids and that's the biggest reward of all."
Those who helped with the project believe that what was thought of, created, and painted by students is helping change the voice students hear in their heads.
"I feel like if we make that safe space for them, I feel like everything else after that will like kind of become easy," Joumana Abas, an eighth-grade student who helped with the project, said.
"I just want to make sure that kids know that it's going to be okay," Lotz said.
If you or someone you love are experiencing thoughts of suicide, there is hope and there is help. The suicide prevention and crisis lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988.
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