It’s no secret that major depression is a fast-growing problem in the United States. According to the National Institutes of Health, 12.5% of teens ages 12-17 experienced a major depressive episode in 2015. Every day, under the stress of school, part-time jobs, and extracurricular activities, millions of Americans are affected by depression. Armed with only a video camera and a positive attitude, one NHS student is working to change that.

Senior Hunter Redmon began his YouTube channel, “HunterRedmonVlogs” in August of 2016. What began as a somewhat spontaneous decision has grown into a journey of encouragement and faith, fueled by the battle cry “let’s soar together”.

“[“Let’s soar together” means] like, ‘let’s soar together over all of our problems’. On Earth, it’s all negative, so [the goal is] to soar above all that.”

After struggling with depression himself, Redmon wanted to reach out to people going through the same thing.

“I’m very motivated to help people with depression and suicide problems, so when I saw how bad this world is getting, I just wanted to start something to show people my life and how they can be positive and hopefully just carry that over to other people,” Redmon said. Through HunterRedmonVlogs and Redmon’s new channel, “Let’s Soar Together”, Redmon hopes to help viewers develop a positive mindset and explore what makes them happy. Additionally, his vlog channel serves as a way to maintain a record of his high school experiences.

“I like to create memories. Like, people do scrap booking. See, I like to do vlogging. My future kids could watch that,” Redmon said.

“The point of his vlog is to spread the word of God. HunterRedmonVlogs is just to make someone happy, bring their spirits up. He’s always happy, he’s never a negative person in his vlogs. He’s always uplifting people,” senior Matthew Abel said.

“Hunter was like, “Hey, I already have a YouTube channel but I like it, and I was like, ‘yep, get it better, do more.’” Innovations teacher Don Wettrick said.

125 videos and almost 250 subscribers later, he has.