[Music] Lakeland Curr your public affairs program for North Central Minnesota closed captioning is made possible by bichi Regional Airport serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis St Paul International Airport more information available at bidi Airport .org hello again everybody I'm Ray gildow and welcome to Lakeland currents one of the huge crises I would call it a crisis facing Americans and also people in the world is suicide um last year 222 roughly 50,000 people in America committed suicide almost four more four times the men do it than the women do it and it's just a very very huge challenge something we never used to talk about and now I think we're getting into an area an era where we can talk about it and do things to kind of prevent it and I have a really unique person on the show today Sarah Smith is the executive director of a foundation she's going to talk about it and they're doing some things that I think are very very unique and I'm just learning about it as as you are so Sarah welcome aboard how do we want to stick kick this off well I think we've already kind of started with all of the stats I appreciate smile it's called we are with smiles for Jake and we were founded in 2018 and our organization started just like other organizations on the mental health and suicide prevention world and that was due to the loss of a loved one in two on February 21st of 2018 we lost our 16-year-old um Jake to suicide and um this was imp Pillager this no this is imp Brainard oh this was in this was in y so Jake lived in Brainard and as friends of the family and as a community we decided it was time to really start a movement and a conversation through the pain that everyone who knew Jake was going through you know Jake was a brother he was a son he was a boyfriend he was that kid in the school who was smiling and on the soccer team and the movement really started through pain of the loss and saying we need to remove the stigma around mental health we need to have a conversation around suicide we need to do better for our community we need people to know it is okay to not be okay and from that the hashtag we are all Jake was born well Smiles for Jake was started because of that painful loss and we will we always will honor Jake's memory we are all Jake means so much more it is about how you might be having a bad day I might be having a day might have these inner depression or anxiety or these sadness happen and we are all Jake is about how it's really a metaphor for all of us like how do we talk about this how do we have this conversation and that's really we were starting our mission is to spread hope throughout the community with listening ears and to really just pay attention and be there for one another and throughout the last few years we've really morphed and shifted into how that looks like like what can we do to have these conversations what can we do to remove the stigma around mental health and um suicide and so from there we now have what we call our smile advocate program which is our Flagship and it's education so um what we do is we bring this you know we have three things that we say we like to do we have we like to spread Smiles by changing lives and with education and we do resource development and we also have a response effort as well but really in our education so to us um we talk about Smile as an acronym as well meaning supporting mentoring inspiring like in everyone oh okay so in our organization we're not mental health professionals but we are human and we are volunteers and we have a passion you said it as we're opening up in 2022 nearly 50,000 Americans died by Suicide we can do better right and if you look at the statistics the ages are getting younger and younger between six and 17 year olds then six yes yeah that's really sad right and in our organization we know we can't be everything to everyone so we like to say that we like to focus between 16 and 24 year olds but we have a multifaceted approach so I talk about our smile Advocate sessions what does that mean so in our education what we do is we we bring this in in a multiple different ways so we will bring in our Advocate sessions and teach youth um usually between 10th and 12th grader but we've gone as young as fifth grade and how big an area do you cover we will go wherever people will take us um last we have been as far as sartel Becker as far north is duth right now we're really saying that we're trying to focus big on region five so our five count area um but if there's a need somewhere else we'll go there as well and and could I ask you another question before go on most of your folks are volunteers aren't they yes so you're an executive director correct paid y but are you the only paid person right now currently so everybody else is a volunteer correct yive we have one employee we have a board of directors of 13 um we have an advocate board who um are previous board members who really still wanted to help and have an impact of five and um but yes I'll volunteer uh but we're growing uh in 2025 we anticipate making additional hires and are your funds coming just from personal donations so our funds come from Grant we do a lot of Grant rating um events we have fundraising events and then yes personal giving and businesses um with this smile Advocate sessions now we will bring this into businesses as well and we have a sliding scale of cost so we know that when we teach somebody if we go into a business that's going to cost us $12.50 per person that we teach starting in 2025 now we are charging that fee to the business for coming in so very minimal but it's so that we can continue to make an impact and sustain in 2024 we taught our program to um 1,200 individuals oh wow yes and um our goal in 2025 is to have about 1500 to 2,000 that's pretty impressive with volunteers yes ex impressive exactly so this education what we do is if we're in a school we do not charge schools at all so we'll go in and we might teach a class classroom of 10th graders and it's about an hourong program and it's very age appropriate to who we're teaching we'll also go into a school and we can offer an hour of continuing education for a teacher or a bus driver um that needed around mental health and suicide prevention and then we also um go into businesses so we might go into a manufacturing company or like a CTC and go in and teach all their employees um and again we bring in stories and we really make it a meaningful impact this is a serious topic this is a lifechanging topic with that said we also want we make sure people are taking home tangible resources it's we have this conversation but we need to say okay now we've had the conversation how can we apply what we know is happening to our lives and to watch out for others again not as a mental health professional as a vol as a human and so we do that and um so we bring in resources as well through I'm I'm not remotely unknowledgeable about this topic except I have personally experienced it and the thing that has amazed me is that some of the folks that I've lost or have known to have gone showed no signs of being depressed or anything it's just a complete shock MH and how about young children do they show signs when they're six or seven so it is interesting because I would argue a little bit that and again this is my personal opinion through life experiences is that um there's always some type of sign meaning if you know what you're looking for if you know what you're looking for and that's where the education comes in it might be very subtle and you know I've personally lost people to suicide and um yes it's it's tough in the understanding I don't think we'll ever fully understand and that also that's the conversation and that's part of the education is um the grieving process if you know somebody who has lost somebody close to them to Suicide the grieving process it's going to be a lifelong process it is it doesn't go away it doesn't it doesn't go away and to make sure that are watching out for those as well and so um yeah I have a friend who lost his grandson mhm his grandson and from the area his grandson was a really successful bright student had a great future ahead of him um they fished together hunted together did everything together he didn't have a clue until he heard that he was in his bedroom yep and that was the end of it and he to this day still can't believe it and and and unfortunately we never probably will yeah and you know we talk a lot about it that you know if somebody goes through cancer you have this courageous battle with cancer if you are succumb to cancer this person fought and they F and when people are going through chemo you can physically see somebody deteriorating so you know they're sick people will reach out to you and say what can I do what can I be how can I be there for you if some is battling mental illness or what we like to call Brain pain which isn't is a um term that was brought to us by Kevin Hines who is a national keynote speaker that I encourage the audience to look up Kevin hines's story so we call it brain pain if somebody's going through it they are battling they are going through the steps they're going through the motions of that battle just like somebody going through cancer so they're battling they're going through a crazy just as well so you know sometimes we talk about it like somebody with cancer that we would never say you know they committed cancer they went through cancer so part of our education we also talk about you know the word commit and people they die by suicide after a courageous battle and so what we can do with our education of what we know better is how do we get people the help that they need as they're battling their brain pain and going through it so yeah what what is it that made you decide to apply for this position uh I had a I mean I'm not trying to get personal no no and it's okay um I had a mentor who was going through a lot of brain pain and um I watched that I knew Jake I did not know him well um I've been friends with his family members um for many many years I watched what was happening within this organization and I just felt this pull to help and what can we do better and I've learned a lot in my tenure I mean I'm I'm fairly new I'm less than two years into it um but if you just have that genuine care and that thirst for how can we do better and we work collectively as a group we can make a difference I often get asked the question how do you know smiles Jake is making an impact and throughout the last few years um we are also helping with resource development we've got this resource called hope hope is a bot you can find her at livingwith smiles.com and so she has another tool in the toolbox but what she looks like is if you go on your phone and you go and you start a chat with her it's a guided conversation where we like to say she holds your hand then guides you to the resour resources that you need really huh so since launching this for our organization in February of 2024 we actually are partnered with another organization who brought it to us but within our platform I can tell you 150 people have contacted directly with 988 wow so 988 for those who don't know is the mental health and crisis hotline you can call 988 if you are feeling a mental health crisis or or you recognize somebody else's and you don't know how to have a conversation with them you can call 988 to how do we talk about this what's what's this going on with my mental health right now where do I go what do I do and so we know through that resource alone we have had over a thousand people go through the chat experience we've had over 4,000 people visit the website um because we have mindfulness tools on there as well and so we're connecting people with 988 I can't tell you it's Anonymous I can't tell you what they're talking about but that's an impact that's a huge impact I guess that we work with um other nonprofits throughout the state of Minnesota on that I can tell you over 10,000 people have visited with ch with hope and over 500 people have contacted 988 that's an impact wow I can tell you that we've taught we've got we've had this smile Advocate again over 12200 people in one year who are listening and willing to have that conversation around mental health we live in a rural area where you know we've already mentioned it where even 10 years ago this conversation wasn't being had Smiles for Jake is really trying to lead the charge and I believe that we are leading the charge on these conversations and bringing these resources on what do we do well if all us fails and you're recognizing some signs I'm going to say call 98 it's a a little bit more complex than that but 988 is always there so your focus is really on prevention yep and if you have a crisis then you would refer that to people who are trained to deal with that correct yep we have local crisis lines we've got um you know and we do have a response we have funding in place as well if there is a loss within an immediate family and there is some funds needed people can reach out to us and we'll provide that as well you gave a good example before we went on air of a family that lost someone M couldn't go back in the house correct talk about what you did there so the the family um they found their loved one in the home and through that again it's it's hard to understand and how did this happen but not just physically could they not bring themselves into their home for a while mentally they they you can't I mean we talked about the grieving process is much different so what Smiles for Jake did is we provided 30 days for a place for that family to stay yep and we have that you know if there's if there is we have that in place wow um that people can reach out to us well let's talk about your resource yes so let's talk about those a little bit so Smiles for Jake and you smile for Jake you can always find a nice little brochure that tells all of the things that you do yes which we kind of covered already but how do we do it like what do we provide so you guys can see this sitting on here this is what we like to call our smile box and our smile boxes are used in a moment multiple matter way you matter yep we've got our teddy bear we've got a journal be kind be kind that is a flaghship message of ours we've got um this is a little keychain this is what we call Cricut Cricut is our masot and what is this that's just a coffee cup but so this is what we call our smile boxes and we use this box in many different ways in 2024 we actually um had over $600 of them filled up but so let's say you are re over the holidays maybe you saw somebody that you could tell it just wasn't themselves they're down a little bit and they just need to pickme up you know into the new year here so what do we do you can just shoot us an email you can find it on our website shoot us an email say hey I've met somebody who really could just use a pickme up provide us their address if you would like to provide us their shirt size we'll send them a t-shirt with it as well and a little handwritten not to let them know they matter let them know that somebody cares about them this is a gratitude Journal we'll teach them how to do gratitude journaling and we're going to send it to them in the mail and we're not there's no no charge no charge we send it out we'll send it out in the mail and is there follow-up sometimes if they have questions if they would like to have questions we have the information on how they can reach us um but really it's just it's that little pickme up sometimes somebody needs the other way we use these boxes is we will put um a list of resources in there and they will be distributed locally we um will deliver them to local emergency rooms crisis centers schools um because somebody might go into one of these places and they're having a mental health emergency and they don't know what to do so we have them there we train the people that we give them to who to give them out and they can give them out um and in there again we tailor them to where they're at for you know a list of local resources we like to make sure that people know that there's local resources for wherever they're at um we also sell merchandise what you asked a little bit about how we're funded we sell merchandise as a fundraiser as well we'll use these as our mailing boxes as well I mean who doesn't love getting a box in the mail with a big old smiley face on it so um the Partnerships are just you know these smile boxes it's a quick gesture but they can be used in so many different ways to impact a life MH and then um the other thing that we do is we have Partnerships so um we actually have another version of this box that's all white with just the outline on it and an example I like to use we partnered with the YMCA and we brought in a bunch of boxes and within their youth educ their youth programming they would do age appropriate we would do a train the trainer so we taught the you know the people who work there we gave them our smile Advocate but then they talk to as young as four five and six and seven year olds about mental wellness and they're not using the word suicide they're not using mental health but there is ways to have conversations around mental health and mental Wellness stigma without the stigma yeah and how cool is it that the next generation is it we want it to be normal and there's no Stigma around it for the next Generation sure and so you know we have so many different approaches that we're working on and this is just another way that we do it so some of your volunteers do they actually get involved in going out and talking to students or groups too yep so if you so our board of directors everybody kind of has a different role we've got um one that's with two that help with education we've got a development you know somebody who helps with development volunteers um community events we have a lot of community events um you know in December we had our kyuna Christmas which is a free event that we put on with CRM C and you know it is meant to put the phones away unless you're using them for cameras and just come out and enjoy the day with your family so we do things like that um beginning of January we had a pond hockey tournament that's a fundraiser for us um but throughout the year we have these events so someone on our board you know each there's a couple people that just focus on one or two of those events we'll have a 5k coming up here in the spring um so yeah so everybody kind of kind of really takes ownership of what they want to um which is amazing you don't have a physical building that you're in do you no so we office out of Brainard um we we are partnered with CTC and they have been very good to us um that's Consolidated telepone yep Consolidated Telephone Company and um when when Jake had passed um Eric Jake's dad had worked there and that whole team has really rallied around and really helped launch some for Jake you know just um and so they're they're very good to Smiles for Jake and really Shameless public for CT they're very good to the whole every community that they are in and um they're great but yes so we do have an office and in their backer building um where I office out of so we are centrally located and you said you have 13 board members and we have 13 volunteer board members we have um a couple people who also outside of our board we have a couple people who help with our marketing and uh weekly emails type things and then we have five on our advisory committee as well where where are you finding the most interest for what you do are you talking like for people who are volunteering or or just if they want to hear about you if they want to hear about we're we're really finding in the schools and in businesses and that's really where we want to be focusing on um because I think that's that's how you can cast a wide net on a LGE amount of people and you know really going into businesses it there's so many benefits to having mental Wellness programs within businesses with employer retention and happiness and um really being able to watch out for one another to have that and so we're very happy to go into businesses um and I can imagine that's not always comfortable going into a business for the first time and most people aren't talking about this just that would be a challenge to get through that barrier well it's very interesting that you actually bring that up we were in a um 10th grade classroom in sartel last fall and we always ask the students if they have any questions and that was one of the questions that one of the students asked is how did you become comfortable talking about mental health and suicide and I think that the more that we talk about it and the more that we have the conversation and the more that we say know that it's okay to not be okay the more comfortable we get is it easy no is it easy talking about um a loved one who has cancer no we are talking about people Everyone matters everyone goes through a struggle in their life of some sort we just need to be better humans and watch out for one another I don't think we've had as much demand for this side kind of training M ever before the last four or five years it just seems to be growing doesn't it there's more people who are depressed stressed out it just seems like it's just a changing world so and I would and I would argue with you a little bit on that point are people more stressed and depressed than they were before or were we always burying it and it wasn't okay to talk about good point yeah and that's and I don't know the answer and I don't think we'll have the answer to that but I think that I'm very proud of this community this area where we live that we are open to having these conversations now that we're willing to talk about these conversations now um one thing and I know we don't have much time left but one thing we talk about is the scale this this brain Pain Scale people might be at a 012 which is very healthy and happy all the time and but we're all going to get into that middle ground where we might have some depression and some sadness what we also talk about is how do you look look for those that are at the 8 n and 10 which is where suicide comes into so we have those conversations on what to do with that well we're running out of time we are so it's Smiles for Jake Smiles for Jake this is Sarah Smith who is the executive director and if you want information about what they do you can contact them through their website which is smiles for.org and then you could look at getting one of these boxes get a Bo or you could also look at contributing some money absolutely we are a 501c3 and its piis farm and we will humbly accept donations as well well it's I think a wonderful program you're doing and best of luck with you I appreciate you having us you bet you've been watching lak currents I'm Ray gildow so long until next time