For her Eagle Scout project, West High student Tiff Lieberman ’25 created the Center for Wellness, a website to share information on mental health resources.

“I was going on to the West High mental health resource page. And it was kind of difficult to find things and I feel like it could have been made a little bit better, especially so the students can access it easier. So then I had the idea: maybe I could create my own.”

Eagle Scout projects are service projects that are done by Boy Scouts across the country to achieve the Eagle Scout rank. The purpose of this project is to demonstrate leadership and address a need in the community. However, Lieberman’s idea was very different from the traditional outdoorsy projects that are done by most scouts, like building bus shelters or park benches, and instead, use her interest in computer science and knowledge of web design.

“The only real requirement for that project is something that will benefit the community,” said Lieberman. “When I proposed this to my troop, a lot of people were skeptical at first because no one’s really done something like this or true. But I knew that this definitely needed to be done.”

However, mental health is an important part of every community’s well-being, and many students are unaware of the resources that are available to them.

“I struggle with mental health stuff and a lot of people I know struggle with it. And I feel like this could help out a lot of people,” said Lieberman.

The project was started in January and took 53 hours to complete, with the help of Lieberman’s Thomas Gibson as well as ’25, Nao Oya ’23, Helena Wa Kalala ’23 and Maggie Owens ’22, members of the TALK group, a club at West High centered around mental health awareness. The website will soon be added to the websites of all the schools in the Iowa City Community School District so students at all schools learn about the resources available to them and how to get any help they need.