Rachel DiBattista is a full time student, studying Visual Communication Design at Stevenson University. Though only 18 years old, she has kept close involvement in her community by working with a special needs cheerleading organization, and now with SPEAK. Cheerleading has always been a large part of her life, and working with the special needs teams has “truly been the best and most rewarding experience”. It has also gotten her through many of the harder and more frustrating portions of her life. She was bullied in my middle school years, and though it hasn’t left a permanent scar, she knows all too well that it could have had more serious adverse effects.
 

During her senior year (2011), a friend of hers, band mate/best friend to her boyfriend, Jon Storke, completed suicide only a short while before graduating high school, and moving on to be a college student at Towson University.
 

“After experiencing the dramatic emotional effects suicide had on her friends, the families, and a community as a whole, not once in her four years, but three times, and also hitting in the cheerleading community, she knew she had to step up to try and make a difference for those affected by suicide”.
 

She created an event with the support of her family and friends that honored Jon and his love for music. The benefit concert series, named “Track 8” after the informally named song Jon was writing for his band to perform, has helped raise money for SPEAK since 2011, and will continue on supporting SPEAK and it's goal of preventing youth suicide and educating communities on the significance of awareness of depression, bullying, and suicide.