“Resilient, determined and helpful,” is how social studies teacher Jason Caballero describes junior Avery Adams. 

“The first thought when I think of Avery was when she came into my global studies class her freshman year because she came halfway through the semester and it was already a weird time for all of us. And one thing that I could understand about her that she did very well is she was willing to work with anybody in class and it did not matter who it was,” Caballero added.

Adams runs/co-runs three clubs, including the Bring Change to Mind Club, to break the stigma surrounding mental health. She co-runs Adopt a Grandparent. This program helps out Boutwell’s residents with technology and provides them with additional company. She also helps with the Peer Helpers program which is to provide extra support to students. Adams also works at Rutherford as a teaching assistant and helps teach preschoolers. On top of all her extracurriculars and leadership roles, Adams is in multiple AP classes.

Adams is not afraid to take a stand and do something to make a change. She is passionate about mental health awareness and the well-being of others. She is fearless when it comes to making a change for the good of her peers. 

Senior Berit Serle explained that Adams is someone who wants to “change the status quo and she has always been very extroverted and willing to challenge the world. She wants to make an impact.”

One of Adams’s most recognizable qualities is her will to help others no matter what and put others first. She is always helping others out and if she understands what is going on she always makes sure that others do too.

“She is just a good person overall and is willing to take the extra steps to assist somebody if they are stuck on a question or be a leader in group projects. If someone was not understanding something, she was there to guide them through that,” Caballero said.

Adams started a branch of the Bring Change to Mind at the high school because she believed with the size of the school there were not enough mental health resources. Adams started her research on global mental health organizations knowing starting a club alone would be demanding. The outline and guidelines that Bring Change to Mind provided were a starting point and formation for her idea. 

“I realized that a lot of the change that was being made had to be student-led because we did not have the initiatives coming from the administration and we did not have as much staff that were working directly on mental health resources. I realized that a student needed to do something,” junior Avery Adams said.

Adams works with three different clubs while taking many accelerated classes at the same time and maintaining a GPA of 3.95 unweighted. This can be overwhelming and a lot to handle at once, but she does it with ease and she enjoys everything she does. She puts in the work and finds time for all of it.

“The one thing I was most proud about was that she recognized school is always going to be school and you are not going to avoid it. It is what it is and she wants to continue. What made me more proud was that everything extracurricular that she does is not looked at as a job of any kind. It is just to help people. It is helping preschoolers, students, grandparents, and peers at school with their mental health. Everything that is extracurricular is not for herself, it is for helping others and to me, that sends a strong message,” Caballero said.

“Her GPA is insane. She is like a duck, on the surface, it looks very still and calm, but she is paddling and keeping all the work under control,” Serle added.

Adams is also in AP Psychology and wants to continue pursuing psychology in college and hopes to receive her Ph.D. in that field someday. She loves working with people, especially kids. She works with preschoolers at Rutherford and is a teaching assistant. Her love for kids and psychology fueled her interest to open up her child psychology practice when she is older.

“I am interested in child psychology because I find behavioral psychology very interesting, especially in younger age groups. I am interested in working with people when I get older, and I am very interested in helping people. I think that would be the right job for me because working with kids is something that I am interested in doing,” Adams said.

Adams lived in New Zealand for a year during middle school because her family moved for a job opportunity. Living outside of the United States gave her unique experiences witnessing different cultures. She admired how community-oriented the country was and how differently they responded to citizens’ needs. Mental health was more openly accepted for discussion and Adams appreciated the acceptance and support the community gave one another. 

Adams explained how everyone in the community considered themselves as Fano, which means super-extended family. She explained that everyone was Fano which meant that they were all one big family. She loved that about living there.

“Avery is always 30 steps ahead. With planning and managing, she takes on a huge sum of responsibility without anyone asking. She is on top of everything even though she’s got a million things going on. She is the one who leads. We co-founded the club, but she is the leader,” Serle said.