EATON — During the Eaton Community Schools Board of Education meeting on Monday, March 11, Michelle Gebhart with Gebhart Counseling Solutions presented information to the board regarding the HOPE Squad program.

“Just a little background — we have done suicide prevention programming in all schools in the county since 2008-2009. We provide that program for students six through 12th grade. In the 2013-2014 school year, we developed our first HOPE group, which is a student lead group of students that we train to present suicide prevention program,” she said.

“We’ve seen a lot of positive results from that. The statistics that I gather each year have been favorable. We are really just trying to increase awareness and information among our students in all five districts. We currently have HOPE Squads in all five districts, as of two months ago. Eaton High School was our last group.

“We have had a lot of positive results having the student groups in all of the districts. Something they are doing this year, is all five groups of high school students have gotten together and have been working to develop a HOPE Fair.”

In May, the HOPE Fair will be held at the Preble County Fairgrounds. Organizers have combined ideas from all five school districts and are asking businesses to sponsor. The event will have different activities, including dunk tanks with area school district superintendents participating.

The event will be free, and any money raised by the students will be kept in Preble County for suicide prevention programming in the schools.