2018 Casco Bay High School for Expeditionary Learning
$2500 Machias Savings Bank Mainely Character Scholarship
In response to the suicide of two friends, she founded a suicide prevention program, Yellow Tulip.
After two close friends committed suicide within a month, Julia channeled her own depression into action. She fought to bring a speaker from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to school, to include mental illness in a Youth Summit, and to install helplines in all school bathrooms. She spoke openly about her own depression, saying “I knew the urgency in talking about mental illness.” Julia founded Yellow Tulip (www.yellowtulipproject.org), a suicide prevention program that is now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
Yellow Tulip was named in memory of her two friends: one’s favorite color was yellow; the other’s favorite flower was the tulip. Yellow Tulip partnered with Seeds of Peace and was working with over 30 schools. Julia gave a TEDx talk to more than 1000 people in the fall of 2017. She enrolled at the University of Chicago.