The 2022 Mental Health Awareness Walk is scheduled for Saturday, May 21. We hope you can make it. This is a free event.
Started in 2019 by Pagosa High School student Sarah Ross, seeks to end the stigma that it’s not okay to talk about mental health. It is okay, and many mental health providers will have informational booths set up at this event.
The first 75 people to pre-register for the walk will get a free event t-shirt. You can pre-register online, here.
You can pick up your shirts at the registration table starting at 9:30am on May 21; the walk will start at 10am, leave from Town Park, circle through downtown and will end back at Town Park.
Upon returning from the walk, local mental health providers will have tables set up… and at 11am our guest speaker, Gus Palma, will share mental health insights. Mr. Palma is a lifelong Pagosa Springs resident, an educator and actor who spent some time in New York and Hollywood after getting his theater degree. He is now working in our local Pagosa schools, striving to make a difference in the community.
Students from Youth Rise and staff from Rise Above Violence will also speak.
The event logo — as seen on posters and T-shirts and featuring the tagline “P.S. It’s Okay (to talk about it)” — is a representation of mental health and was designed by Ethan Brown, artist and former PSHS student. The roots of the tree take up a large portion of the logo, showing how buried and unspoken mental health can be and that it is rooted in our society: out of sight, out of mind.
We hope you can join us. Dogs welcome with leash. Support the Youth Rise students at Pagosa Springs High School who planned this event.
For any questions, please contact John Finefrock, Youth Advocate at john@riseaboveviolence.org
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