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The Founders Story

Our Founder Kelli Melissa Reinhardt (Hansen) lost her middle sister Carrie to a completed suicide on Feb 20th, 2017. She knew that she wanted to make a difference in the lives of people even if it was only 1 person at a time. She wasn't sure how to do that and was hyper focused on the suicide prevention aspect since that was how her sister passed. Then she was introduced to Mental Health First Aid and started gaining tools, certifications and learning more about mental health, the brain and the reason why people choose to take their own lives. Through this education she learned that a mental health challenge is generally what leads to suicide, so she shifted her focus to mental health more. If we can get to the root cause then we can ACTUALLY save lives. 

Having this education, understanding and knowledge was so impactful in her life that she knew this was what she needed to give back to the community, so the whole focus of the nonprofit shifted to mental health and suicide awareness. 

 

The nonprofit idea was born in 2017 and became official in 2018 as the registered 501c3 nonprofit organization BCC Evolution. 

BCC stands for "Because Carrie Cared". BCC also reflects on the theory behind Blind Carbon Copy emails, a person’s name is on the "bcc" line and they do not know who else's name is there. It is hidden and that is how we think about a Mental Health challenge, it is there, but you may not know it is there. Our goal is to get the hidden names listed on the "bcc" line to the "to" line so that people feel seen and do not feel alone. We open up the conversation about mental health, and we start breaking down the stigma. You cannot always see a mental health challenge or know how to address it until it is too late, and we lose a life to a completed suicide. And Evolution, because we are ever evolving.

However as time went by the name BCC Evolution became more of a barrier than we knew it was going to be, since it has nothing to do with mental health or suicide prevention. The more and more we were trying to spread our message and bring more awareness of our services we found that BCC Evolution was not sticking in people's minds. We often heard BBC instead of BCC or having to always explain the name everywhere we went. So the decision was made to shift our name to our tagline: Make Mental Health Matter which is more in alignment with what we do. We are taking action to MAKE Mental Health Matter.

And the story continues...

Make Mental Health Matter bracelets

The Problem 

Mental Health is the epidemic, suicide is the action that occurs from a mental condition, including but not limited to, depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse, which are all risk factors. Or past traumatic experiences like child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, rape, grief or loss, divorce, bullying, head trauma or any type of trauma throughout life can also be a huge factor.  And we know there is not enough Mental Health facilities or providers to support the amount of people in need or suffering from a mental health condition. This lack of resources is causing people to attempt or complete the act of suicide due to feelings of being alone or not having another option. Our future and our past are dying by their own hands and the stigma and silence that surrounds mental health needs to be eliminated.

Our Solution

We focuses more on the Mental Health aspect which ultimately contributes to the prevention of suicide.

Education saves lives. The more people know and understand, the better they can help those in need or themselves.

We offer multiple levels of education classes, Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), Breaking the Cycle of Trauma Master Education Program, become a Breaking the Cycle of Trauma (BCT) instructor program, Give Youth a Voice, and NLP Practitioner Training in partnership with WorldWide NLP.

Programs and resources including:

 "Who Is???..." blog to share your story or the story of your loved one.

Free Grief and Loss Support Group on Circles. Mondays at 12:30pm MT, Make Mental Health Matter Show TV. Podcast. Radio. We also host 2 events every year to continue the conversation in a safe place which include our International MHSA Film Festival, and Gala.

“If we open our minds, hearts and mouths, together we can make mental health matter!!"

It is okay to not be okay!!

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