NAMI Hosts 2nd Annual Celebration of Courage
By Maya Carpenter
On September 7 and 8 an array of iris, tulips, and daisies were lined up in neat rows on the lawn of St. Joseph’s campus of Mission Hospitals.
The flowers were there to support a good cause: a “Celebration of Courage” sponsored by the Asheville chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
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| Left to Right: Boyscout volunteer Stephen Hallum (20), Chris Hewitt (13) from Troupe 75, Javen Bomar (12) from Troupe 154, and David Mills (12) from Troupe 154, place waist-high silk flowers on the lawn at Mission Hospitals, St. Joseph’s Campus in preparation for the NAMI “Celebration of Courage”. Photo by Michelle Rabell. |
NAMI is a volunteer
organization committed to advocacy, education, and support for people
with mental illness and their families. With the help of the Wake
County chapter, Jim and Sharon Pitts were able to raise awareness
during two eventful days.
Jim is
co-president of the Asheville chapter, and he and his wife Sharon
worked hard to coordinate the second annual event. One of Pitts’s main
goals is to inform more people about designing stability and treatment
for mental patients.
Mission
plays an important role in encouraging more facilities in the Asheville
area. However, according to Janet Moore, director of community
relations and marketing, there’s only so much room, especially with
pediatric, adolescent, and adult mental patients all needing services.
To help support NAMI, visitors to the Mission event could purchase a
flower for $25 to represent a loved one with a mental illness. Monetary
gifts of $50 or more also were welcomed.
Sometimes
people aren’t able to advocate for themselves and that’s what the
flowers represent. “Without NAMI, we wouldn’t know the best ways to
help out loved ones,” says Sharon.
Another
of Pitt’s goals is to get people of color to know that NAMI exists.
According to the NAMI Multicultural Action Center, mental illness is
frequently stigmatized and misunderstood in the African American
community. “The more of us that come into NAMI, the more issues on
people of color will surface,” Pitts says.
African
Americans are often at a socioeconomic disadvantage in terms of
accessing both medical and mental health care. Mental health problems
occur at a rate of fifteen percent among African Americans, and only
nine percent among Caucasian Americans.
For more
information, contact NAMI via email at [email protected] or by phone
at (828) 258-5359. To make a donation, make a check payable to NAMI WNC
and mail to Jim Pitts, 21 Allesarn Road , Asheville, NC, 28804.
