The need to be needed: how one student with a sign has inspired others

Many students have seen a student that has been called “The Sign Guy,” that has been spreading love and positivity to UVU students by riding around campus on his iconic one-wheel, flashing his homemade sign. 

Jaden Young, a Senior at UVU, having some free time early in the semester, set out on his one-wheel and ended up in Hobby Lobby. Remembering a woman he had seen years earlier “standing on the corner of University and State Street…[holding] up a sign.” he felt inspired to follow suit. 

He didn’t remember what was on the sign but remembered how he felt good and uplifted. Buying a posterboard, tape, and some markers, he drew up his first sign that read, “you are loved.”

“I’ve been doing it for… a couple months now” responded Jaden, reflecting on the start of this habit. Observing “a time of darkness” Jaiden decided he would act, he would remind UVU students of the “three important truths” that “each person is born with.” These truths are that we are “important, needed and loved.”

During the first week of riding around campus with his sign, the battery was very low on his one-wheel. He went to his car to charge it and on the way, he showed the sign to a student driving past. The student “stopped in the middle of the road, honked his horn…,” Young  recounted. 

As he turned around, the student said, “Dude I really needed to see that today, can I just give you a hug?” Concluding that memory he shared, “we just hugged it out and he said, ‘thank you, keep doing what you are doing.’”

Jaden has become a familiar figure on the UVU campus, several students recall seeing or hearing about “The Sign Guy.” “I love that man. He is a legend” said Bryant Price, a UVU freshman, after being passed by Young holding his sign. Some students smiled as he passed, some called out to him, and others ignored him.

Young has experienced light opposition with his sign riding since its inception. “I have been asked a few times not to ride around in here.” He stated as we walked through the long hall in the Liberal Arts building. These few types of encounters have not deterred him from sharing his “little… light of hope” with others. 

“I hadn’t really thought that it was affecting me that much” he stated, reflecting on the personal impacts of this tradition. Upon consulting with his wife he learned that “[he] can’t stop talking about it.” He then admitted, “I can’t stop thinking about it… It has affected me a lot more than I thought it would.”

Though incredibly simple, it is utterly bold. His silent declaration has uplifted and inspired the hearts of hundreds of UVU students. In his closing remarks, he firmly restated his beliefs that “we are important, we are needed, and we are loved” he then extended an invitation to all students saying, “If you don’t know that and you see me riding around, come and talk to me and I will help you feel those things. You are loved.”
Check out the UVU Review’s full interview of Young on YouTube or at uvureview.com