Community Counseling Center Foundation wants communities to ‘go green’ for Mental Health Awareness Month

For Mental Health Awareness Month in May, the Community Counseling Center Foundation hopes to see as many towns lit up with the color green as possible across the five counties the center serves.

Mental Health Awareness Month was established in 1949 and has been a "cornerstone of addressing the challenges faced by millions of Americans living with mental health conditions", according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ website. The color green is synonymous with mental health awareness and signifies new life, new growth and new beginnings.

Although the CCC Foundation isn’t able to light the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge green as it did last year, it’s instead giving away free green LED light bulbs — while supplies last — to residents who want to show their support for the cause by making their porch lights green. Bulbs may be picked up at the Foundation’s office at 63 Doctors Park Drive in Cape Girardeau.

"Neighborhoods can agree to go green and get as many of them as they can and light their houses green whenever it gets dark," Foundation executive director Michelle Ramsey said. "You can take a picture of it and tag us on Facebook, and we will pick a winner from each of our five counties."

Community Counseling Center provides services for Bollinger, Cape Giradeau, Madison, Perry and Ste. Genevieve counties.

Ramsey also had several businesses agree to light their buildings green.

"I am determined to try to get as many buildings and places lit green," Ramsey said. "... I have Century Casino and the new hotel. I have Houck Stadium. I have the fountains in front of SEMO and I’m hopefully going to have the dome but I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not. We’re challenging all businesses (to participate), whether you go buy green floodlights or hang Christmas lights."

In addition to giving away light bulbs, the Foundation is selling yard signs for $12, green T-shirts for $20 and feather banners for $100 to help raise awareness. For businesses and schools, a sponsorship package is available for $500, which includes a yard sign, feather banner and 10 T-shirts. All proceeds will go toward providing mental health resources for the community.

"The goal is to try to get as much of the area in all five of our counties going green, talking about going green and promoting it on their Facebook pages," Ramsey said. "One of my board members is with Cape Public Schools and she sent out an email to all of her counterparts at Cape Public Schools. A lot of the staff purchased the shirts and they’re going to be doing the green Fridays. Jackson did as well."

According to Ramsey, relationships and performance at work or school can suffer because of mental illness, and many people aren’t conditioned to think about how mental health issues affect a broad spectrum of people.

"With mental health awareness month, we just try to raise awareness with the goal of trying to de-stigmatize having a mental health disorder. Anxiety, depression and all of those things, they are truly mental health disorders or behaviors and a lot of times people don’t think of them that way. By combining that process together and saying, ‘It’s OK to not be OK,' and those types of things, the goal is to make mental health issues become more acceptable and more the norm."

Ramsey said she feels it has become more socially acceptable for people to seek help and talk about their mental health issues over the years.

"It’s become more acceptable to talk about things that we didn’t get raised talking about," Ramsey said. "When I was a child, I had a couple of kids that I went to grade school with whose dad shot himself in the front yard and it wasn’t talked about. We knew it happened but you didn’t talk about it, the scars that had to be there and that still are there from that. Right after the first of the year, we had a kid in Jackson who was a college student who took his life and everybody knew it, and they talked about it. They used that as a method to help keep that from happening again."