By Genoa Barrow
GoFundMe’s motto is “Helping People Help Each Other” and as July is Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, the company is highlighting a handful of “changemakers” who are utilizing the crowdfunding service to be of service in meeting the unique mental health challenges that minorities face.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 1 in 5 adults experience mental illness each year. Mental Health America says 6.1 million people in the African American community have a mental health condition.
“The stark numbers are pushing businesses, organizations, and communities to take action,” said Cornell Wedge, GoFundMe communications associate. “Many are turning to GoFundMe to help find solutions for this growing issue and help others realize they are not alone.”
Among the efforts highlighted this month is Therapy for Black Men, a national effort based on the East Coast that offered free therapy sessions before running out of money.
The OBSERVER spoke to co-founder Benjamin Calixte in June and featured a virtual interview with him and Therapy for Black Men supporters during the paper’s recent “It’s OK Brotha Black Men’s Mental Health Resource Fair.” More than $100,000 worth of free therapy sessions have been provided to Black men and boys across the county.
“We started initially with four sessions and four sessions quickly grew into about 10 sessions,” said Calixte, who started the project with his wife, Vladamir.
“It’s not a cure-all, it’s not a silver bullet,” he added. “But it’s something that gets them on a pathway to have a consistency, a continuity of care, to where they can get into a rhythm of seeing why therapy is so important.”
Therapy can be expensive, which creates a barrier for many. The cost has become a reality for the Calixtes, as they’ve had to halt future sessions, with some 5,000 people on a waiting list.
Boston-based mental health advocate Lisa Sugarman started the GoFundMe campaign on behalf of Therapy for Black Men. Sugarman is a crisis counselor and a speaker with a Massachusetts chapter of NAMI.
“We’ve had so many incredible connections develop, and so many opportunities, hopefully, to infuse them with the resources that they need to keep doing this,” Sugarman said of the online fundraiser. “ It’s life-saving work and it benefits all of us.”
Therapy for Black Men also gets support from advertising leader Janis Middleton, who serves as chief inclusion officer at 22Squared and Guided by Good in Atlanta, and her colleague Kendra Malone, senior art director and creator at 22Squared. They have partnered with Calixte in promotion of a No Pause Project, which addresses Black masculinity and mental health.
“Kendra and I come from two different places and from two different generations, but I think the commonality is to protect and support and help our Black men,” Middleton said. “When you look at the internet today, and you look at the conversations that are being had, and you look at the things that we’re talking about, the things that we’re saying to one another, and you see there’s a lot of healing that needs to be had.”
Calixte said helping men overcome stigma and educating them on the benefits of therapy are critically important. Middleton, who champions therapy personally as well as professionally, agreed.
“I know what therapy has done for me,” she said. “I know what therapy has done for my circle of women and, oh, boy, if only I had started earlier. So when I see how fulfilled I am and what it has done for me, I can only imagine where our Black brothers can be in the same space.”
The other mental health-related efforts being highlighted this month are Spread Da Luv Co., a new, North Carolina-based program that seeks to provide therapy to college students; the Traussage Initiative, a Los Angeles-based project that looks to provide massage therapy to trauma survivors; and C.J. Carter, who wants to create barbe
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