We worked with familiar faces – Josh Anderson Foundation – and met new allies in the fight for suicide prevention – Bob Sleppy at Nuçi’s Space and David Anderson of Survivor to Hero. We also had the opportunity to connect with individuals who support the efforts of the Active Minds chapter on their campuses and in their community – Barry Bryant at UNC Chapel Hill; Cary Israel, President of Collin College; and Brian Loughmiller, Mayor of McKinney, TX.

Based on material distribution and conversations had while on the road, we likely reached over 50,000 people with our message! All of this thanks to the hard work of our host campuses and chapters who were a part of bringing Send Silence Packing to their community.

While we celebrate the success of this powerful program and prepare for yet another round of campus tours for the 2013-2014 school year, I would also like to take some time to present this important call to action. See the message below to learn more about how you can help Active Minds win $1 Million to continue programming like Send Silence Packing.

If you could save a student’s life – wouldn’t you?  What if all you had to do was cast an online vote?  Active Minds needs your help to make this happen!

Active Minds, Inc., dedicated to creating a world where no person dies by suicide and ensuring that no student is left struggling with their mental health alone, has been selected as one of 25 charities in the race to win $1,000,000 through the American Giving Awards presented by Chase. We’re approaching the last days of the competition (voting ends tomorrow, December 4 at 11:59pm EST) and we need your help to get the word out.

Please take 15 seconds to vote for Active Minds and share the link with your friends.

You can VOTE by following these four easy steps:

1. Go to www.voteactiveminds.com.
2. Click on the blue VOTE button.
3. Click “allow application.”
4. Click “go to application.” DO NOT click “close”
5. Again, click on the blue VOTE button.
6. Vote and share with your friends.

You will know if you voted if you see the “thank you screen” and if there is a check-mark next to “voted” on the Active Minds voting page.

We hope that you will join us by liking the Chase Facebook page, voting for Active Minds, and then asking everyone in your network to do the same. Individuals can only vote once, which is why we are relying on the power of sharing to get the word out about our organization and earn as many votes as possible. The more people you can share it with, the better.

Mental health issues are real, they impact all of us, and Active Minds is transforming the way society talks about the issues so no one is left struggling alone. Visit us at www.voteactiveminds.com, click on the blue “Vote” button and submit your vote today!

If you are a Chase customer you can also vote by visiting www.chasegiving.com, clicking on the “Health & Wellness” category and selecting Active Minds.

Thank you in advance for your support. Your vote and your voice will help us save lives!

We thought we’d do something a little different for this display, and so we asked Active Minds chapter members and visitors to share their experiences with Send Silence Packing, Active Minds, and Mental Health. Check it out below:

We’ve seen so much momentum for mental health on campuses throughout our Southern US tour! The energy continued during our extremely lively display at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. The warm Florida weather and active campus community ensured that we had plenty to talk about throughout the event.

Two things stood out to be about this display: The interest in personal stories/family history, and questions. These two overlapped quite a bit as well, and we heard several students asking an important question: what can I do to make sure my family is ok?

This is a fantastic question, and luckily, an answerable one. As we emphasize during our city displays, the information we provide, while focuses on college students, applies to everyone. Mental health is ubiquitous—it’s something we all share. We may be at different parts of a spectrum at any given time, but we all have the capacity to be a part of the conversation. One visitor spent quite a bit of time at our resource table before asking how she could get information about how to learn about her Uncle’s schizophrenia. She mentioned about how she knew almost nothing about it growing up because her family refused to acknowledge it. However, by taking the step to ask questions this day, she was able to walk away with information on how to learn more about what was affecting her family.

As we near the end of another tour, the display at FAMU was an important reminder that we need to continue having these conversations and discovering the tools to talk about mental health throughout all of our communities, whether it’s your school, your workplace, or your family.

Emory’s campus was full of students and professors that were interested in taking pictures of the display. The students from Decatur were snapping photos during set-up and making sure to document every part of their experience. There were also several people that came by, spent a lot of time reading the backpacks, and took pictures of the display. Seeing so many people do this reminded me of what it was like to experience Send Silence Packing for the first time. Now that I am on my third tour (and Brandon on his fifth) we are constantly excited about interacting with people that come to the resource tables to ask questions and share stories. I think we sometimes forget the experience we had seeing the display for the first time because we are so eager to interact with students walking by.  

People will often comment on how overwhelming it is to see the back packs. Once they hear what they represent and how many young people we are losing each year, it takes a moment for people to collect their thoughts. It is one thing to hear the statistic that 1,100 college students lose their lives to suicide each year and a whole different thing to process seeing that many back packs. It is a great feeling to be a part of their experience and to help students change the conversation about mental health on their campus. Send Silence Packing makes a very serious and powerful statement while inspiring people to change the way they view mental health and suicide.

We received a lot of support throughout the day, and realized how important of an impact we made near the end of the display. We were short on volunteers when we started pack-up, but we had students stop what they were doing to help us. They had seen the display earlier and were eager to lend a hand. Working with Active Minds has been a constant reminder of what a difference we are making in the lives of people that we interact with. For all of the people that we were able to talk to, there are several more that were impacted my our message. Getting help from the students was a refreshing act of kindness that meant a lot to us when we needed the help. We hope to give the same message to anyone that we reach during our displays.

We had a lot of opportunities at this display to talk with visitors about the language of mental health. One question that kept coming up was “I have a friend that has been acting differently, but I know they wouldn’t want me to ask them about it—what do I do then?” Starting the conversation can certainly be a challenge, but that doesn’t make it any less important.

This is a difficult answer, because the right way to go about it is going to be different for every person. When someone is struggling with their mental health they can certainly feel vulnerable and defensive when confronted. However, in most cases, regardless of how the individual initially reacts, talking to them WILL have positive results—even if they don’t show it right away. Simply knowing that someone is there for them can plant the seed to them opening up and facing what they need to face to become healthy again.

We have a responsibility to be there for the people around us when we’re able. It may be challenging, and the answer of how to approach as certain situation may not be clear at first, but it’s important to remember that reaching out will never do more harm than good.

One of the things we like the most about doing a city display is the opportunity to reach out to a broader audience. When we’re at colleges, our main focus is the students. We will get campus employees and administrators interacting with the display, but they make up a small percentage since the majority of interactions are with college students. It gives Active Minds a chance to reach an audience that has young people in their lives that they can speak with about mental health issues.

At the end of a display in a city, I like to look back at all of the conversations that I’ve had with people and remind myself of how different each person was from each other, but how similar our conversations were. This brings up the important fact that mental health affects us all, and that mental illness doesn’t only affect one “type” of person. Mental illness doesn’t care about a persons age, race, socioeconomic status, or profession. This is especially coherent when I realize how many stories I hear from people that are connected with our movement in one way or another.

‘

We were in the Business District of New Orleans and were surrounded by several offices. There were business professionals that came throughout the day to tell us that they kept looking out of their window and noticed all of the back packs set-up and needed to see what was going on. Once people heard about what we were doing, they shared their personal experiences of losing friends and family to suicide. Several people came down from their offices to tell stories, show us pictures they had taken from their window, and share gratitude for us being in the city. One man said that there were several people from his graduating high school class that had died by suicide, but that nobody would talk about it. Seeing the display and knowing that young people are working to end stigma toward mental health made him realize things are changing in a positive direction.
We got very similar reactions from the homeless population that interacted with the display. They shared their stories of loved ones that they lost and personal struggles with mental health. We had a couple add a story to one of the backpacks and volunteer their time to help us set-up and take down the display. I spent some time listening to their experience of traveling through the south without a home and how they have gotten help along the way. They also shared how they have helped others to cope with mental illness in positive ways.

The great thing that Send Silence Packing does in a city is bring people from all different places in life to one event. There are so many people in big cities that are having so many different life experiences that they forget how similar we are to each other. People forget that we can help each other and that people care, even if they are a stranger. Send Silence Packing reminds a lot of people – or teaches people for the first time – to speak up and reach out when you notice someone struggling. It shows us that it is okay to ask for help when we need it, no matter who we are.

“Well, the police cadets will be here shortly,” we heard. We’ve had a lot of different things happen during these tours, but this was a new one. Within a few minutes we had not only the help of students and faculty members, but also of dozens of eager police cadets.

The new volunteers began placing backpacks and within 15 minutes the display was ready to go. This incredibly fast timing worked out to our advantage, because within minutes, professors began sending entire classes full of students out to see the display.

A lot of students at once means a lot of questions coming in at once, and we love being there to answer them with the help of our volunteers. Whether it’s listening to visitor’s stories or exploring their questions, we’re there to give people a space to begin talking about mental health and to give them tools to take away at the end of the day to continue their own conversations. Talking about mental health can be difficult sometimes, but the effects of these conversations can save lives.

Alvin is a community college, which means it’s a little smaller than some of the other schools we visit. The impact, however, is just as grand. The word community really comes out in places like this—not only did we reach students and faculty at this display, but members from the community that came to share in our message as well.

The cadets that helped in the morning didn’t just show up, carry some bags, and disappear, but rather they took time to read the stories and ask their own questions. One in particular pulled me aside and asked me for as many details as I could give about how he could be involved in this movement. We exchanged questions and ideas, and he eventually told me that this is so important to him because it has already affected his life in huge ways in the past and he didn’t know what to do about it. We never got into specifics of what he had experience—and we didn’t need to. The important part came in the what to do next. I was happy to see him leave with an entire stack of reading material for him to use on his own journey in learning how to talk about mental health—something we can all continue to do ourselves.

The only thing New Orleans wasn’t very good at was internet in our hotel room. Now that we have working internet, keep an eye out for lots of new blogs from the last couple stops that we’ve had !!

I also wanted to share something. Brandon and I watch lots of Ze Frank while on the road. He’s a funny guy that makes great videos about all kinds of different things. This one in particular stood out to me – especially since we’re on tour. I hope that others will appreciate this the way we did:

The campus started off the day with speeches from the officers and advisor of Active Minds at Collin College. The president of Collin College, Cary Israel, gave a speech as well as the Mayor of McKinney, TX, Brian Loughmiller. It was a great feeling to know that Active Minds and Send Silence Packing have the support from such important people at the college and in the community. Not only did Israel and Loughmiller take time out of their day to support the cause, they invited other prominent members of campus and the city to see the impact of Send Silence Packing. They both touched on the importance of mental health and what people can do to help erase the stigma associated with mental illness. President Israel stated that “It’s good to remember, to remember [loved ones lost to suicide].” It is important because remembering is a way to help others that are struggling and a way to help survivors that are coping with someone that they have lost.

There were two performances during the display. The first was Jed Harris, a professor of psychology at Collin College. He has written a song for the Love Is Louder program that the Collin College Active Minds chapter participated in, and he is currently working on a song that he wrote for Send Silence Packing. He played his guitar and sang as students interacted with the display, stopping to talk to students that were interested in what was going on. We also had Kassy Levels perform in the afternoon. She is a 16 year old singer/songwriter that has been singing since age 9. Her sister and father are part of her band, and they perform all over Texas. She performed cover songs as well as songs that she had written herself. Having Jed Harris and Kassy Levels as part of the display set a tone as people walked through the back packs. Having music at the display is a reminder of the soothing qualities of a guitar or the way a song can make you feel better when you are having a rough day.

The display also had a visit from Dancing For a Cause, who performed a routine in the afternoon as well. Dancing For a Cause is a student group on campus that comes together to dance as well as volunteer in the community. There were a few professors that brought their class to the display, including an Art Appreciation class that worked on abstract pieces inspired by Send Silence Packing. Active Minds at McKinney was also supported during the display by SOBI- Strategies of Behavioral Intervention, Hope’s Door- a domestic violence advocacy group, National Alliance on Mental Illness of Collin County, and COGS- Collin Organized Geek Society.

The day was full of inspirational programming unique to Collin College. Having the support of the campus, the community, and many students that came to interact with Send Silence Packing is an amazing feeling. Talking about suicide and mental health is not always well received, which is why we continue to work hard to break the stigma associated with it. Being in McKinney, Texas showed us proof of entire communities dedicated to changing how people view mental health. And that is a good feeling.

It didn’t take long to get grab the attention of passerby’s as the local news began covering the event during set-up. The questions started rolling in from students and faculty and we were excited to start answering the. It’s always a great opening to the event when we get a chance to start off the display with curious and enthusiastic students that want to know why we’re on campus.  It sets a great tone for the day, and UGA was no different—we interacted with thousands of students during the day.

With so many conversations, we naturally had a lot of visitors sharing their experience and history with mental health (whether it be themselves or someone in their life) in our traveling journal. You hear so much from us on this blog, so we thought it’d be a good time to share a few comments that visitors left in the journal throughout the day.

“I usually feel so alone. It’s nice to see this around campus”

As a former victim of depression and suicidal thoughts, it really makes me feel relieved to know that this display exists. Thank you.”

“Freshman year I went through a rough first semester. Whether it was homesickness or stress or having no one I knew around (perhaps a combo of everything), I fell into a depression that almost cost me my place in UGA & everything. Luckily I was able to pull through with some new found friends who helped me and my sister. Whatever happens, know that you are stronger than what it hitting you and you WILL make it through. Awesome display. Much love and support.”

“Thanks for being here. Sometimes I just need to talk.” 

“I have struggled with mental illness for most of my life—manic depression, anxiety, bulimia. If I had ended it at the worst point, I would have missed out on the greatest joys of my life.”

“This hits really close to home—one of my very close friends recently attempted suicide. Knowing there are groups out here makes me feel reassured. It’s wonderful to know that help is around and that people are listening.”

“I suffered from a major depression for years. I remember being suicidal since the age of 9. I finally got help 2 years ago. Talking about it changes everything.”

“This display really affected me. I was trying to hold back tears while reading the stories about suicide victims written by their surviving family and friends. This is an issue close to my heart as I have had personal experience between myself and people very close to me struggling with being suicidal. I am only alive today because a friend convinced me to go to my psychiatrist and voluntarily be committed to a hospital on suicide watch. I have supported friends and been supported by them to keep each other alive no matter what. Support and communication are essential to survival. I’m so glad that Active Minds has this display to raise awareness. Too many are silent out of fear. We need to show them that it is okay and things can get better.”