HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WDAM) – With May recognized as Mental Health Awareness Month, local organizations and city leaders came together to bring awareness to mental health topics.
National Alliance on Mental Health Illness board member for Mississippi, Mavis A. Creagh says the organization was started over 40 years ago with efforts to shed a light on mental health and the importance of taking care of those in the community.
“My hopes as far as with NAMI and mental health awareness s program is to let people know they are not alone,” said Creagh. “There’s a lot of community supporters from the city to the county ad from just people coming together doing awareness, events, churches even financial cooperation’s that see mental health is important.”
Founder of 522 Event Group, Daniel Cook chose NAMI as one of the charities to raise money for this year, through the annual “Sneaker Ball” event.
Cook says it is important to let people know there is support within communities for those who are struggling with mental illness.
“… So, many people are going through things and struggling, and to see the community come together for the good cause of providing support and health in mental health is tremendous,” said Cook. “It’s immeasurable, the impact of what one life can be impacted on just by the support and reaching out and what NAMI is doing.”
Alongside organization leaders, Hattiesburg Mayor Toby Barker signed a proclamation with hopes of letting citizens know about the mental health recourses in the Hub City.
“We want our citizens to know to go and get help,” said Barker. “If you know someone or yourself talk to somebody and seek those resources out. We have a long way to go to establish a seamless mental health care system, but I do think in this community we band together to get things done, and I hope to have this proclamation, recognizing all the folks we did, will just let people know this is an ongoing issue that we need to be part of.”
For more information on mental health resources, you can visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness website.
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