K-M class hears from NAMI speaker

Lori Pagel’s Community Action Class at Kasson-Mantorville High School is unique. It is a class with a focus on connecting with the community in a hands-on way through volunteering and helping others.

The class involves classroom time where people from the community come into the school to talk about their organizations and how community members can help, Pagel said. There are also times when class members go out in smaller groups to actually volunteer and an individual “Passion Project” where the student picks a project or cause they are passionate about and gets involved.

A current small group project, she said, has involved working with the Wednesday night meal at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Kasson on two separate Wednesday nights.

Ali Carryer, the volunteer coordinator with the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Southeast Minnesota was a recent speaker at one of the classroom sessions.

NAMI, Carryer explained, is an organization of families, friends, and individuals whose lives have been affected by mental illness. It’s an important topic, she said, because one in five adults has experienced some type of mental illness and one in three have had symptoms of anxiety or depression.

Since 1986, she said, NAMI Southeast Minnesota has been serving residents of Olmsted and the six surrounding counties. The organization reaches out to the community through support groups for those with mental health issues and also informing the community at large about mental health and working to reduce the stigma associated with mental illnesses.

“A huge thing is eliminating the stigma around mental illness,” Carryer said. “The four pillars of NAMI are support, education, advocacy, and encouragement.” People have been more open to talking about mental illness since the pandemic, she added.

All the staff members at the local NAMI organization have had a “personal or lived experience with someone’s mental illness,” she said.

Carryer was open with the students about her own situation, explaining she has “struggled” her whole life with issues until 2019 when an event sent her on a downward spiral. Since then, she said, she has been working to improve her own mental and physical health and through work with NAMI helping others.

NAMI Southeast Minnesota, she explained, is affiliated with the National and Minnesota NAMI organizations.

For individuals struggling with mental illness issues NAMI offers peer-to-peer support groups as well as family support. Volunteering with NAMI can help spread the word about mental illness and reduce the stigma surrounding it. One way to support the cause is through participation in a NAMI Walk event.

Everyone, she said, can help by knowing how to talk about mental illness and how to listen to those they know who are struggling.

Depending the individual comfort level, Pagel added at the end of the class, there are lots of ways to be involved with NAMI. “Breaking down the stigma is hard,” she told her students.

Bringing in speakers like Carryer and those from other organizations gives students a chance to learn about all the opportunities available to them. That way, she said, they will be able to find a group or cause that ignites their passion and become involved.

“If everybody does a little, it helps a lot,” she said