Cari Strand, Contributing Photographer

It was hard to find empty space on Jonaily Colón’s childhood bedroom wall. 

She began at age 8 with lined paper, drawing and taping up stick-figure scribbles until she’d emptied entire composition notebooks. 

Over the years, she graduated to construction paper, adorning characters with hair and adding landscapes to her repertoire. Now, you will unlikely find more than an inch of blank wall separating her artworks.

In June, Colón won a two-year term as student representative on the New Haven Public Schools Board of Education. Along with another representative, she will attend biweekly board meetings as a non-voting participant to advocate for student interests during deliberations.

Her creativity helps her sustain her capacity for leadership. And the drawings are early proof of her persistent nature, her older brother, Christopher Colón, believes.

“I imagine her house in the future would be filled with insane things on the interior,” her older brother, Christopher, said. “She likes to work on things. She doesn’t quit and start something else. Obviously, the things she’s doing now are different, but [with] the same values, the same mindset.”

Some of those new activities are still creative. 

Today, Colón spends plenty of time alone, journaling and writing stories, crocheting baby blankets and learning the guitar. It’s how she prioritizes herself, now a junior at New Haven’s High School in the Community, or HSC, amid a flurry of schoolwork and college prep.

“I still want to be really in tune with myself,” she said. “I stick to things that make me happy because I don’t want to keep doing school, school, school. I’m very big on my own mental health.”

Colón’s priority on board — mental health

Colón, a New Haven resident since her family moved when she was 8 months old, considers school an important escape, especially for students enduring hardships at home. Through her work on the board, she wants to ensure that her peers have easy access to essential mental health services and trusted adults.

“School is a place where you should feel the most comfortable,” she said. “It’s definitely one of my happy places.” 

When Colón was in second grade, New Haven Public Schools was implementing a trauma management program called Animating Learning By Integrating and Validating Experience, or ALIVE. Her school hired counselors with whom she and her peers could speak confidentially about at-home struggles.

Colón believes that trusted mentors like these are essential in preserving long-term student well-being. She recalled the positive impact the program had on her peers.

“Students found themselves able to talk freely without being judged,” Colón told the News, describing the impact of the ALIVE program. “Not having anyone to talk to shapes a person. When you’re a kid, everything that happens to you affects you. If you don’t get that help earlier, it gets harder as you grow up.”

Becoming a leader

As she advocates for stronger mental health infrastructure across the district, Colón herself is determined to serve as a resource. In her free time, she works in several capacities as a leader and educator for young children.

At her high school, she has served as an ambassador in the Summer Bridge Program, New Haven Public Schools’ high school transition initiative for rising ninth graders. Colón first participated as a leader during her sophomore year, which she considers her “first big leadership role.” Before the school year begins, she works with teachers to introduce students to the school community, tour local sites like East Rock and ease their nerves.

“Jonaily really showed up,” said Cari Strand, the building leader at HSC. “She was always talking to the incoming students. She was always checking in with them, making sure they were okay, while also making sure the adults had what they needed, doing administrative tasks, stepping in where there was a need.”

Since joining the Bridge Program last summer, Colón has taken on numerous mentorship positions across New Haven. She has been involved with the environmental education nonprofit Gather New Haven, working on their partner farm sites throughout the city, and counseling kids ages 8-13 in Schooner Camp, an environmental immersion and coastal sailing program.

“I really like working with kids,” Colón said. “I like to make sure they’re the one leading the conversation, that I’m asking them questions to see what they know.” 

During the school year, she works as an apprentice at the Peabody Museum, leading paleontology and ecology activities for families.

Her brother, who visited her during a shift at the Peabody, estimates that she has managed crowds of more than 40. Still, she finds fulfillment in the individual connections that emerge from her leadership. 

“I think she’s interested in people,” Strand said, recalling her work at the Bridge program. “When you talk to Jonaily, she’s really paying attention to what you’re saying, and to show that respect to these younger students made them feel like they had a place here at High School in the Community.”

Strand recalls a project Colón completed with her sophomore class, in which students were asked to finish the statement “I am…” Colón wrote: “open-minded; trying to approach everything with creativity and positivity.” 

Along her path to leadership, Strand says, “She had to open up parts of herself and extend herself in ways that I think coming from a small school can be intimidating, but she was not intimidated. She’s quietly fearless.”

Colón will serve a two-year term on the New Haven Board of Education.