This site is not about fundraising. But if you were going to give an annual gift to a mental health organization and you follow Beacon Tree, then this is the time to do it. Or you can share.
Newman’s Own Foundation will be matching dollar for dollar until January 3, 2018.
That means if you give $25, Beacon Tree gets $50. So where does the money go?
Family Grant/OnRamp Program
We help fund childhood evaluations not covered by insurance or medicaid. Some of these can be expensive and without the evaluations that offer a diagnosis, kids can’t get free state supported services at school or a treatment program. Many families are too inundated with bills to be able to afford the evaluations, creating a road block to getting treatment.
Many times we fund treatment with this program or offer scholarships.
DJ is one of the kids Beacon Tree helped get into McShin Academy where he he previously had found success. This 17-year-old was begging for help. I know him and his mother personally and he is the sweetest kid. We listened and he gets to go back.
Like Charles, he writes raps and he has told me how much Charles’ story meant to him. Read DJ’s story here.
Preventure
We have a pilot school for Preventure Program but we have to fund the effort. This program has been shown to reduce drug and alcohol use in adolescents by 30-80% at 3-year follow up. The intervention focuses on teaching at-risk teens the life skills to manage one of the four personality traits that put them at risk for addiction: sensation seeking, impulsiveness, anxiety sensitivity, and hopelessness.
The workshops will offer kids the coping skills they need to manage relationships and curb high risk behaviors associated with those personality traits such as drinking and doing drugs, ending up in jail, dropping out or failing in school, dying by accident or by suicide.
We are piloting this program in 2018 at one school. Maybe more if we can get the funding. More information on Preventure.
Newman’s Own Matching Donation to Beacon Tree Foundation
One day all these things will have funding and I won’t have to sell my soul to the devil to get manuals for a high school to run a program that has shown spectacular results like Preventure or to help pay for an evaluation for an 8 year old that wants to kill himself by jumping off a balcony at his home. One day. Unfortunately, that day is not yet here.
You all know why I am passionate about this. This time of year is especially hard and I am struggling. I don’t want other parents to suffer like this. I really don’t. You never know if and when it will happen to someone you love.
Addiction, depression, overdose or suicide. None of those outcomes are what we dreamed of when we had children. No one thinks they are raising a child only to bury them before we die. So please share.
Thanks for giving us a chance to help, too.
I appreciate your help, Leigh! Thank you