There are many worthy causes to support in our world. Too many. When thinking about making a commitment to supporting a cause in a significant way, Brad and I spent many hours discussing where we wanted to focus our efforts. We thought about some of the wonderful programs and organizations we had supported in the past. We thought about our family, friends, and co-workers. We thought about our own experiences, and eventually identified the growing mental health crisis as the area we thought we could best impact. Not unlike cancer, a worthy cause many of us give to in the effort to find a cure, we can all say we know of someone who is dealing with mental health struggles. While everyone deals with it in different ways, most of us have a son, daughter, parent, friend, co-worker or acquaintance whose family is dealing with mental health struggles every day. But unlike cancer, there is still a stigma attached to mental health issues, and many suffer in silence because they feel ashamed of their illness. Worse even are those who want to deal with it, but due to limited resources or access challenges, their struggle goes untreated. We decided this would be our focus.
Instead of donating to existing programs, we decided to start a new organization. We are not experts in the field. Far from it. We knew we couldn’t offer programing or counseling, but know there are many incredible organizations out there already doing great work. We decided our new organization would be a supporting organization to the great work already being done across New Hampshire. NewCo (our first name for our new non-profit) was born. We knew we needed to find a leader who had experience, passion and a huge heart. Enter Tricia Brannen, our dear friend, who would assume the role of Executive Director and lead us through the next steps in defining what we were going to “be.”
After months of meeting with stakeholders in the mental health community, it became clear to Tricia, Brad and I what the focus of NewCo’s efforts should be. The statistics were staggering. Even more staggering was hearing from providers, community leaders and most importantly kids, how desperate the situation is in our state. It became clear to us that we would focus our time and resources on youth mental health issues, and YouthWell New Hampshire was born. We are in our earliest stages, but are energized and excited by the proposition of helping youth in New Hampshire live their best, most healthy lives. Our tagline says it simply but we believe truthfully; Healthy Minds = Health Futures.
