How Katherine Rosenberger-Martin Is Changing Mental Health in the Hospitality Industry
In an industry built on service, smiles, and stamina, the people behind the scenes are often the ones suffering most.
Hospitality workers are expected to say yes, absorb stress, manage emotions, and deliver perfection—no matter the cost. Post-pandemic, those expectations have only intensified. According to widely cited industry research, hospitality now ranks among the most stressful professions in the United States, with a staggering percentage of workers living with anxiety, depression, or burnout. Yet conversations about mental health remain largely unwelcome inside the workplace.
For Katherine Rosenberger-Martin, a pageant titleholder and mental health advocate, that silence became the catalyst for change.
Her platform, 5 to Save a Life, is not rooted in theory. It is built on lived experience, professional insight, and a refusal to accept that discomfort should cost someone their life.
A Story That Started Long Before the Crown
As a teenager, Katherine was the only openly gay student at her Catholic high school. The bullying was relentless. At 17, the weight of isolation and untreated mental illness led to a suicide attempt—an experience that would quietly shape every chapter that followed.
Survival, however, did not come with a roadmap. There were no clear tools for understanding mental health, no language for asking for help, and no community that felt truly safe. Years later, she would receive a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, offering clarity—but also reinforcing a painful truth: help often comes too late.
“I realized that what nearly cost me my life wasn’t just my illness,” she has said. “It was the lack of intervention. People didn’t know what to look for or what to say.”
That realization would eventually become the foundation of 5 to Save a Life.
The Hospitality Industry: A Hidden Crisis
Today, she works in the hospitality industry—an environment where emotional labor is constant and boundaries are rare. Workers are expected to manage guest demands, tolerate verbal abuse, work understaffed shifts, and remain composed under pressure. Saying no is not an option. Showing vulnerability is often viewed as unprofessional.
When Katherine openly discussed mental health at work, the response was not support—but discomfort.
That moment marked a turning point.
“If I can’t build a safe community at work,” she decided, “I’ll build one myself.What Is 5 to Save a Life?
5 to Save a Life is a mental health education and suicide prevention platform designed for everyday people—not clinicians. Its core belief is simple: you don’t need to be a therapist to save a life, but you do need the right tools.
The platform centers on a five-step model that teaches participants how to:
• Recognize warning signs of mental distress
• Catch subtle behavioral clues
• Start compassionate conversations
• Offer meaningful support
• Connect someone to appropriate help
The approach is practical, accessible, and intentionally designed for high-stress environments like hotels, restaurants, and resorts—where traditional mental health training is often nonexistent.
Rather than focusing solely on awareness, 5 to Save a Life prioritizes action.
Turning Advocacy Into Infrastructure
What sets this platform apart is its scope. Alongside her advocacy work, Katherine is completing a master’s degree with a thesis focused on developing a core mental health curriculum for hospitality organizations. The goal is to bring suicide prevention and burnout intervention directly into corporate training, conferences, and workplace systems.
This positions 5 to Save a Life not only as a nonprofit initiative, but as a scalable curriculum, consulting framework, and speaking platform—one capable of influencing policy, leadership, and workplace culture.
Industry leaders are beginning to take notice. Hospitality organizations face rising turnover, liability concerns, and workforce exhaustion. Solutions that address mental health proactively are no longer optional—they are essential.
Why Pageantry Matters
Pageantry is not the centerpiece of her story—it is the amplifier.
The crown provides visibility, credibility, and access to conversations that might otherwise be closed. As a titleholder, she bridges advocacy and authority, using the platform to elevate a message many workers are afraid to voice themselves.
“Pageantry gave me the microphone,” she explains. “But the message existed long before the sash.”
A Life Saved Starts With One Conversation
At its heart, 5 to Save a Life is about preventing silence from becoming fatal. It is about empowering coworkers, managers, and peers to step in—early, compassionately, and confidently.
In an industry built on serving others, this platform asks a necessary question: who is taking care of the people who take care of everyone else?
Through story, education, and systems-level change, the answer is finally beginning to emerge.