Breaking the Stigma: Prioritizing Youth Mental Health in Our Community
I had the opportunity last week to join a dear friend to see the Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen. I had no expectation of the performance as I entered the IU Auditorium. I had not read anything to prepare me for what I was about to see.
In a word, the show is brilliant. For anyone interested in gaining a measurable understanding of the powerful nature of social media on our youth today, this is the best compilation of that discussion. Toggling back and forth between the life struggles of teens, and that of their parents, and the struggles between the two, the performance creates a definite crescendo that ascends throughout and leaves you a bit stunned.
Evan Hansen is a high school student burdened with depression and anxiety and struggling socially having no friends. His single-parent mother is busy with work and school herself, so Evan is often alone absorbed in the world of social media. After an unexpected run-in at school with another reclusive student who a day later commits suicide, Evan finds acceptance when a letter he wrote as a therapy assignment is mistaken as the deceased’s last words. Evan then claims he was his secret best friend, elevating him to a new social platform at school and on social media. The lie begins, and the story takes hold.
No, I am not starting an entertainment review column, but this production taps into the mental health crisis that the Community Foundation is responding to more and more. In nearly every public meeting I attend, mental health is part of the conversation. I sit on the Better Communities Coalition wherein all the challenges of our community are represented as one “spoke” of the wheel – housing, childcare, transportation, economic development, and yes, mental health. Keylee Wright, Executive Director of The Kendrick Foundation heads the Morgan County Mental Health Task Force and has a seat at the table everywhere educating people on this significant, growing concern. You simply cannot omit the discussion of mental health when examining the needs of Morgan County, especially when it comes to our youth.
In the past 5 years, CFMC has awarded more than $40,000 to nonprofits supporting mental health initiatives for Morgan County youth. One such award was $10,000 to Mooresville High School last year for the creation of their Student Support Center which I visited last August. The layout provides students with a casual, lounging type atmosphere to gather for tutoring, group discussions, or a quiet retreat to decompress when feeling stress. Stocked with snacks, a coffee bar, stress balls and gadget, it is a judgement-free zone with upper class leaders selected for peer mentoring. The space for many is an alternative to taking online classes at home or dropping out of school altogether. Principal Wes Upton explained, “This room helps us keep kids in school.” One student using the room shared with me that she had witnessed the Greenwood Park Mall shooting and was still experiencing bouts of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), requiring her to get to a quiet space to calm herself at times. That is all I needed to hear to know we had granted those funds to the right place for the right purpose.
Meeting those Mooresville students and seeing Dear Evan Hansen have made me examine my own learning curve on this issue and that of the Community Foundation. My own experience has in the past limited my perspective. When I was growing up, you went to school, no matter what. If you threw up before school, your mom said, “You are fine now. Get on the bus.” But the problems students are facing today will not be purged by one bout of regurgitation. I watched those talented actors entangling the fragile Evan Hansen character with complex layers of public pressure, and I could not help but think, “this didn’t happen when I was in school.” This issue is personal to me, and I am saddened that the frivolity of those important years is often not enjoyed by many of our youth. This plague of depression and anxiety that runs rampant through our schools is at a minimum killing those carefree years that I so fondly remember.
As a community, we need to preserve those carefree years and tend to these students who need strengthened so they can focus on becoming productive citizens. I urge you to commit to our mission through charitable giving. All donations to our grant making fund will be tripled by Lilly Endowment’s Gift VIII through the end of the year. If we meet our fundraising requirement, Gift VIII will nearly double our grant budget for 2026, increasing it from $73,000 to nearly $135,000. With more funding, we can help Morgan County youth, and from what I can see, they need us.
