St. Francis Gala to boost mental health resources in county

The St. Francis Foundation hosted its 20th annual St. Francis Gala to raise money and awareness for mental health resources and services Feb. 18.

This is the third year in a row focusing it on mental health resources. The theme for this year, “Here to heal,” represents implementing mental health resources and expanding services to support patients. Throughout the event speakers discussed how they were affected by mental health and what they did to get help. The event also held multiple fundraisers to raise money for its goal.

Megan Jennings, development officer at St. Francis Hospital Foundation, said the mission of the event is to help open the eyes of the community about mental health and expand resources available to those in need.

“This year is all about having a solid foundation of the programs that were implemented and continuing that great work,” Jennings said.

The gala was hosted by Clarence and Chelli Green and included live entertainment, a silent auction, live auction, dinner, mission moment, afterparty and a DJ.

The event had over 400 guests in attendance and participated in fundraisers for mental health resources throughout the auctions and dinner.

Ben Farrell, an emcee and auctioneer, said that with so many students considering suicide, they need a support system.

“Tonight we can be their biggest fans, their supporters,” Farrell said. “Mental health is a crisis, we have to be there, and we have to have a team to support them.”

Throughout the evening, many speakers were invited to the stage to share their stories about how mental health has affected them and how they worked through it with members of the Francis Foundation. By holding this gala, the foundation raised money to use for mental health service expansion.

St. Francis Hospital Foundation has been an important part of supporting health care and expanding services since 1976.

“We started two years ago with the motto ‘hope we heal,’” Jennings said. “It really set the stage for what we are trying to open the eyes of our community to, for the real challenges that we are all facing with mental health.”

The theme builds upon the foundation created over the past two years that helped implement vital mental health resources across the region. Some resources being many different forms of therapy, counseling,and rehabilitation. Proceeds from this year’s Gala will create an outdoor space, expanded classroom/therapy space and a secure visitor space for the inpatient mental health unit at Mosaic Medical CenterMaryville. In addition, it will be working to create space for the expansion of providers and services in our outpatient clinic.

The St. Francis Foundation shared the story of its 15 mental health ambassadors during the event. Each of these ambassadors are students, community members and representations of inspiring stories of individuals that have reached out and got help when they were affected.

Northwest basketball players Jayna Green and Wesley Dreamer, both ambassadors for St. Francis Foundation, spoke out about how mental health affected them and how they reached out and got support.

These individuals either made an impact on mental health efforts or have been affected by it themselves.