ISU students gathered Tuesday night to spread the message of love. University Program Board (UPB) hosted Write Out the Love (WOTL), an event that combined the organizations of To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) and MoreLoveLetters.com.

“To Write Love on Her Arms is an organization focused on presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self injury and suicide. There is special focus on teenagers because all of the above is a huge teenage epidemic and issue. TWLOHA is there as a crutch for those suffering, to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery,” Maddy Marchini, UPB awareness chairperson, said.

Friday is TWLOHA Day, which is a day devoted to suicide awareness and remembrance of those who lost their lives to depression or suicide. People across the country will be writing love on their arms to show support for those struggling.

At WOTL, students had the opportunity to get henna tattoos of the word love in honor of TWLOHA Day. UPB also gave a presentation about the organizations that inspired their event and the statistics that sparked TWLOHA and MoreLoveLetters.com.

“So many of us … really struggle to accept ourselves just the way that we are. We get plenty of messages about needing to put on a façade or fear that we don’t have any flaws or that we always have it together. But the reality is that, obviously, we’re all human and we’re all imperfect,” Jenny Thome, staff counselor for Student Counseling Services, said.

Antonio Vargas/ Photographer: Khamille De Lara, sophomore international business major, writes a love letter for someone special during TWLOHA.

According to TWLOHA.com, 350 million people worldwide suffer from or struggle with depression.

One of the activities students participated in was writing love letters to strangers. UPB then gave those letters to MoreLoveLetters.com or distributed them to those in need of encouragement on campus.

MoreLoveLetters.com started when a girl named Hannah moved to New York after college. She began writing love letters as she struggled to find her place in the world and left the letters in hidden places, such as in library books and coat pockets.

Now, Hannah’s website asks people all over the world to write letters and send them in, so she can connect them to people in need of love.

WOTL gave students an opportunity to participate in a worldwide dispersal of love and support by passing on knowledge of the depression problems in the U.S.

“To me, [events like this are] a way of raising awareness and lets people know issues and problems that are out [there] and what people can do to help other people, like a friend who is struggling,” Kimi Jalali, freshman actuarial science major, said.