How A Little Blue Box Is Quietly Saving Lives — And Redefining Mental-Health Support

Find Your Anchor

It Started With a Box

Not a theory. Not a campaign. Just a small blue box, packed by hand and left quietly on a library shelf in Illinois. Inside: cards, a playlist, a letter, and something harder to define—hope.

The idea came from Ali Borowsky’s own experience. After surviving multiple suicide attempts—her first in eighth grade, her last at age 26—she found herself deeply disillusioned with how the world responded to mental health. What she needed wasn’t another hotline or pamphlet. She needed something real. Something human.

So she made it herself.

That box became the first of what is now Find Your Anchor, a grassroots movement built around small, tangible acts of support for people in crisis. What began as a personal healing project has since reached over 100,000 people, one blue box at a time—and now spans 40+ countries.

Healing, by Hand

Ali Borowski, Founder of Find Your Anchor

Borowsky started by designing a single box as part of her senior project at the Art Institute. She placed that first one on a shelf at her local library in Elgin, Illinois—and waited. A week later, she received a message: “When I opened the lid, I just started crying. You must have saved hundreds of lives by now.”

She knew then: there was something here.

Every box is still assembled by hand, with volunteers writing personal notes and adding meaningful, human touches. No two are exactly alike, but each one carries a simple message: you are not alone.

Surveys show just how powerful the impact is:

• 98% of recipients say receiving a box positively impacted their life

• 98% believe the box could help save lives

• 92% say Find Your Anchor is a game-changer for mental health.

A Love Language Made of Small Things

Morgan Cook, who joined Find Your Anchor in 2016, came in around box #90. Today, she and Borowsky run the nonprofit together—and are married.

“I haven’t personally struggled with my mental health,” Cook said. “But I’ve loved someone who has. And I didn’t grow up with the emotional vocabulary to know how to help.”

For her, the box became a bridge—something that could hold space when words were hard to find.

“We say anchors are a love language,” she said. “When Ali’s having a hard day, I don’t need to fix anything. I just turn on Sister Act 2, order Chinese food, and she knows—I’m here.”

In the language of Find Your Anchor, an anchor is anything that helps keep you grounded when you're struggling. It might be a favorite movie, a song, a comforting routine, or a kind word from someone you trust. These small moments offer stability when everything else feels uncertain—and they can be powerful reminders to hold on just a little longer.

What’s Inside the Box

What’s inside the FYA box | @EVE ROX PHOTOGRAPHY

Inside each box are 52+ Reasons to Live cards (written and photographed by Borowsky), a bracelet that reads “You are so incredibly loved,” a button, stickers, a mixtape that links to 11+ hours of feel-good music, a Please Stay pledge co-created with the Born This Way Foundation, crisis resources, and space to add your own anchors before passing it on to someone else.

Find Your Anchor’s creative approach also includes animated GIFs, inspirational posters, and nonverbal outreach tools—part of a growing toolkit designed to meet people where they are.

The Stories That Stick

Since that first placement, the boxes have traveled across the country—left on park benches, mailed anonymously, or passed between friends. Each one carries the possibility of reaching someone at just the right moment.

Borowsky recalls one story from Delaware, where a friend placed a box on a bench near the beach. Ninety minutes later, a woman messaged the organization: she and her mom had opened it together and cried in the car. “It felt like divine intervention,” she wrote.

Then there’s Franny, a teenager whose mother had once requested a box for her. It made such an impact that she later chose Find Your Anchor as her Girl Scout Gold Award project—raising funds and assembling 100 boxes of her own. When her family visited the warehouse in Long Beach, her father came back in after they left. “He gave me a huge bear hug,” Borowsky recalled. “He just said, ‘Thank you for saving my daughter.’”

Strangers who case - FYA volunteers

Building Boxes, Building Community

Find Your Anchor has now partnered with groups like the San Francisco 49ers, Las Vegas Aces, Los Angeles Lakers, Kate Spade New York, and over 770 high schools and 96 universities nationwide.

These partnerships often include box-building events, where employees or students pack the materials themselves—sometimes writing notes or sharing their own anchors. Borowsky calls it “sneaky mental health.”

“People think they're just building a box for someone else,” she said, “but they’re actually absorbing the message, too.”

At one event, one athlete shared that he had been drumming since childhood—something even his teammates didn’t know. It was a moment of unexpected vulnerability that revealed how the act of building boxes can spark connection in surprising ways.

What Comes Next

Borowsky and Cook have a bold but practical dream: a box on every college campus in America. One in every library. In every public health office. On every flight. In every Congress member’s hands.

Borowsky and Cook have a bold but practical dream: a box on every college campus in America. One in every library. In every public health office. On every flight. In every Congress member’s hands.

They also hope to partner with organizations that can help with the rising cost of shipping—a major hurdle. While individual boxes are free for those in crisis, the organization depends on donations and sponsored builds to sustain its work.

They name Taco Bell, FedEx, Delta Airlines, Hilton, and Spirit Airlines as some of the dream partners they’d love to collaborate with. And yes, they’re manifesting an Oprah moment, too.

But beneath the vision is something simpler.

“One life saved is worth all 100,000 boxes in the world,” Borowsky said.

And if that starts with just one person opening a lid and feeling less alone—then that’s more than enough.

To support Find Your Anchor—through partnership, funding, or simply helping spread the word—visit findyouranchor.us. 

Every box is a small but powerful reminder: you are loved. Please stay.