Celebrating May as Mental Health Month on Campus

From 10:00 am to 1:40 pm I sat at a little white table in the free speech area of my University to celebrate "May is Mental Health Awareness Month."

I used the following to raise awareness:

~Fliers from www.mentalhealthamerica.net

~A brochure I made myself using campus computers with Microsoft Publisher installed. The brochure highlighted a part of the Americans With Disabilities Act and its impact on those with a mental illness who are attending a federally funded post-secondary school. It also listed good memoirs to read which were written by people with a mental health disorder. I threw in a trivia question about Pulitzer Prize Winner/paranoid schizophrenic/A Beautiful Mind inspiration John Nash for fun, as he is my hero.

~4 books from my personal library:

    "Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide," by Kay Redfield Jamison.
    "Wasted," by Marya Hornbacher.
    "An Unquiet Mind," by Kay Redfield Jamison
    "The Collected Artwork of Martin Ramirez," with drawings by Martin Ramirez.
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Number of people who came up to ask me what I was doing:    2

Number of people who passed by the booth without asking:      100+

Number of friends who stopped by to find out why I ditched class today:   6

All in all I would say that those 2 people who came up to me without knowing me made the day worth it. :)

If you would like to hold a booth at your campus, I would suggest the following:

1)  get in touch with services for students with disabilities office and work the plan out with them (I did and they sponsored me and paid for the booth).
2)  bring peppermints or something to hand out to people. I wish I had had the money to buy peppermints.
3) do not get a table next to a for-profit company that plays dubstep for 4 hours straight and dances around enticing people to look at them and not at the lonely, non-profit, mental health information booth. I like dubstep, but four hours was too long.
4) get in touch with your local NAMI at least two months in advance. My local NAMI chapter did not respond to my emails (I sent two emails), but that is probably because they are preparing for NAMI walks, so I am not hurt.
5) bring a lot of visual aids and always, always, smile!

Thanks for reading and happy may is mental health awareness month!