From planning their next Thanksgiving Day delivery to organizing Hoops For Heroes, the club Students Helping Soldiers (SHS) has managed to incorporate another event into their already packed repertoire: the 22 push-up challenge.

The 22 push-up challenge has become a viral sensation with videos all over social media. According to the 22KILL website, the challenge’s goal is to raise awareness about the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that many veterans face after serving by spreading the statistic that 22 veterans commit suicide everyday.

President of the club, Danny Lubelfeld ’17, believes that Stevenson’s take on the challenge is beneficial.

“I think that [the challenge] gives recognition to the troops and the veterans,” Lubelfeld said. “[Students] start thinking about it and then they realize that they can’t take the army for given, and then they appreciate it.”

The 22 push-up challenge is nothing like the other functions SHS has to offer. Rather being a hands-on event that requires attendance, the 22 push-up challenge can be done anywhere, as long as the participant attempts to do 22 pushups for 22 days. Most push-ups for the event are posted on social media as well. Throughout the year, the club has a variety of events such as a 9/11 memorial, military appreciation sports games, food deliveries to underprivileged veterans, their newest addition, Vet Fest, and much more.

To advertise the 22 push-up challenge, members of the club hung informational flyers about the challenge up and passed out wristbands to get the word out. Co-sponsor Dean Moran has seen the impact Stevenson students have as they follow through with the challenge. To him, the challenge has positively affected suffering veterans.

“[For combat Veterans], It’s a struggle every day. It’s a great that our country and society have learned about PTSD and support it now unlike in the past, Moran said, “[The struggle] PTSD is a real thing.”

To co-sponsor Stephanie Bush, the challenge means more than just raising awareness about the internal battles veterans have to face each day. Instead, the challenge is something to strengthen the camaraderie between everyone, not just those in need of help.

“It’s a way to extend the challenge to students at Stevenson that maybe haven’t seen [the challenge] before,” Bush said. “It promotes PTSD awareness, that some military veterans are not always equipped to handle life outside the military, and that we need to do better as a society to support them. This is our way of promoting that idea of showing support for them.”