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Darien, CT

Darien based charity takes over Times Square for World Emoji Day

Research Shows 80% of Teens and Gen Z Struggle to Initiate Mental Health “Check-Ins” on Friends

(Darien, CT – July 17, 2024) – For World Emoji Day the #HT40 Foundation, founded to encourage young people to be there for their peers through action-oriented initiatives that foster social connectedness, is launching its second initiative – a “Check In” Emoji.  Through #HT40's recently fielded quantitative research study, the Gen Z audience nearly unanimously confirmed how important mental health is and recognized the importance of checking in on their peers. However, 80% of those surveyed reported not knowing what to say to start the dialogue. The new "Check In" emoji is meant to solve that problem. 

To kickstart this new initiative, #HT40 is asking people to help choose an emoji that best captures the message of checking in with one another. There are two design options. One design is called The Reaching Out emoji, which shows a hand offering a blue heart on top of it, and the other is The Here For You emoji, which shows the silhouette of a hand placed on someone's shoulder as if in a moment of support. People can vote on their favorite design. #HT40 will be submitting the selected icon to the Unicode database for inclusion across digital platforms. 

“We all struggle with the right way to approach hard situations,” commented Rob Thorsen, co-founder of The #HT40 Foundation & Shoulder Check. “Ironically, we're more connected than ever, but feeling further apart than ever before. So we are advocating to create this simple emoji that makes it easy to let someone know you are thinking of them. And our research demonstrates that something this simple can make a huge impact, by making it easier to reach out and connect with one another in earnest.”

The “Check In” emoji builds on the original Shoulder Check premise - the notion that checking in is as simple as a hand on a shoulder - which launched in August of 2023 with an all-star charity hockey game called the Shoulder Check Showcase. At the game players circled up at center ice before the puck dropped and made the Shoulder Check commitment by placing a hand on the shoulder of the player next to them, while every fan did the same with their neighbor, and pledged to “Reach Out, Check In, and Make Contact”. The inaugural Shoulder Check Showcase event sold out and kickstarted a national movement from the youth to the professional ranks. Since August 2023 tens of thousands of people have made the Shoulder Check pledge from NHL and PWHL clubs to local and youth programs from Stamford to Seattle.

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Submitted by Erica Bates

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