UMD student raises $1,300 for mental health charity playing guitar every night

By: Isaiah Shiau

Gustavo Rego, who raised more than $3,000 for mental health at the end of his 2024 spring semester. (Photo courtesy of Gustavo Rego)

COLLEGE PARK—Any other freshman on campus would spend their evenings going out and enjoying the nightlife of College Park – not Gustavo Rego.

The sophomore aerospace engineering student minoring in philosophy could be found playing guitar on a bench in the Heritage Community quad most nights from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Rego played to spread awareness of mental health for teenagers, raising money for a nonprofit organization called the JED Foundation.

Born in Brasíilia, Brazil, Rego grew up playing guitar in elementary school briefly after moving to the U.S. at the age of four. He picked up the guitar again in high school, playing for almost five years.

When moving onto campus his freshman year, Rego felt stressed in the new environment, and needed to find a way to combat this anxiety, he said.

“I need to find something that really scares me. I need to do it, and then if I can do that, I know I can do anything,” Rego had told himself. “For me, that was performing in public. So I just grabbed my guitar, I went out to the bench in front of Pyon-Chen Hall, and I just started playing.”

Rego intended to play for only one night, but after receiving friendly exchanges from passing students and tip offerings, Rego found a new sense of direction.

“I wasn’t really comfortable raising money for myself,” Rego said, “but I figured if it’s something that people were interested in, I would set something up with something that’s really important to me, which in my case, is the JED Foundation.”

Rego spoke about his personal and familial experiences dealing with anxiety and depression. Wanting to pay it forward, Rego chose the JED Foundation because of the resources available to people with similar struggles. By the end of the 2024 spring semester, Rego raised just over $1,300.

“I was playing for freshman year, three hours a night, basically every night, at least, like five or six nice week,” Rego said.

Pranab Jha, a close friend of Rego, commented on his character and empathy. Jha specified on how Rego is a genuine person who will keep things honest while also being caring. 

“If you talk to him, he shows genuine interest in what you’re talking about. Like if you’re going through something you want actual empathy towards you,” Jha said.

Rego spoke about his most memorable night while playing guitar. Late one night he was outside of Pyon-Chen as usual while a friend kept him company. 

“It’s probably already 10, and this girl comes running down from Johnson-Whittle and sits down and talks to me for a while and ends up staying there for a couple hours,” Rego said when describing the memory. "And that was a bit over a year ago now, and now I’m dating her.”

Anushka Kaluskar, a sophomore mechanical engineering student from New Jersey, described the night she met Rego from a similar point of view.

“He was sitting outside playing the guitar, and I actually ran down like five flights of stairs to talk to somebody else, and ran into him instead.” Kaluskar said. 

Kaluskar spoke to Rego for hours and she began coming down to sit with him every night he played. The two began dating during fall 2024. She described Rego as selfless for his efforts to raise money for a mental health charity.

“He’s an aerospace engineer,” said Kaluskar when explaining how academics consume most of Rego’s time. “It’s pretty impressive that freshman year he was able to take 15 hours out of his week to play guitar to raise money.”