AUSTIN — The Hi, How Are You Project, an Austin nonprofit focused on mental health awareness and connection, launched a free app Oct. 10 with self-care tools and ways to find or organize local wellness events. The app includes guided breathing, journaling, reflections and prompts, and a dashboard for tracking progress. Users can also find or host activities such as walks, yoga classes, fun runs and healthy-cooking sessions. Tom Gimbel, who co-founded the organization in 2017, said the project wants the app to encourage people to meet in person. He pointed to isolation and loneliness as concerns for young people, alongside a shortage of mental health providers. “We wanted to put the Hi, How Are You Project in your pocket: community, conversation and self-care,” Gimbel said. The nonprofit takes its name from the question associated with Austin musician and artist Daniel Johnston. His “Hi, How Are You?” mural near the University of Texas campus has become a local landmark and an emblem of the project’s effort to make mental health conversations easier to start. The launch came on World Mental Health Day and ahead of “Hi, How Are You?” Day, which is observed Jan. 22. The app is free to download from the App Store. Gimbel said Austin-based student housing company American Campus Communities sponsored its development. The nonprofit is also working with campus communities through its Thriving Student Playbook, a curriculum for student housing organizations that offers 27 suggested events and guidance for checking in on students. Gimbel said the program is active through housing partners on 100 campuses nationwide. At UT, the group has launched a separate Thriving Longhorn Playbook led by student volunteers. The project’s biennial Thriving Student Index survey found that about 38% of students surveyed were thriving, Gimbel said. Among those who said they were thriving, 81% identified community and being around friends as especially important. The survey findings are the nonprofit’s own, rather than a broad measure of all students.