it's ok to not be ok

by Suzanne Hanney

by Suzanne HanneySoon after Matthew Hoffman started the You Are Beautiful project in 2002 with an offer of five free stickers to anyone who sent a stamped, self-addressed envelope, he was astonished to receive letters and photos of stickers on landmarks as far away as China and Antarctica. But it was a letter from Florida that really moved him.

“Someone sent a photograph of a sticker they had put on a bridge railing,” Hoffman said in a telephone interview. “Right below, there was a plaque where someone had taken their life some time before. They put the sticker up and hoped that if someone was in the same position, they might rethink their action. It really struck me how powerful a few words can be. What it did for me was, it reminded me of the significance of everything I do and everything I put out, that I put through the lens: not only that it is open and accepting of everyone but that it will do some good and not add to the negativity. It reinforced my guiding principles.”

Jonny Boucher, meanwhile, grew up just north of Chicago and entered the music scene at age 13 by putting on punk metal shows and creating community spaces where people felt they could belong. When Boucher’s boss and mentor, Mike Scanlan, died of suicide in 2010, he was the ninth person close to Boucher to do so. It was a “final straw moment” that led Boucher to found Hope For The Day (HFTD), a non-profit movement for proactive suicide prevention through outreach and mental health education.

Initially, Boucher would just say a few words onstage after concerts and would encourage people to reach out for help. But the more he did so, the more people came forward, which showed him that breaking the silence empowered people to express their challenges.

Suicide death rates have surged to a 30-year high, with 800,000 reported annually around the world and over 121 individuals daily in the U.S. alone, according to the HFTD website, hftd.org. As CEO of HFTD, Boucher says it’s not a new trend.

“The more we expose it, the more we see like my boss Mike, when he took his life, there was the desire to say it was an ‘accidental death. Oh, we don’t want the family to be plagued by that.’ We haven’t had the best reporting.”

Hope For The Day had developed its own expression, “It’s OK Not to Be OK.” When Boucher and Hoffman exhibited at the same Northwest Side art show, Boucher approached Hoffman, noted their similar work around positive messages, and suggested they work together.

Hoffman’s first project for the collaboration is a 24-footwide, cursive “It’s OK Not to Be OK” for Sip of Hope, HFTD’s coffee shop at 3039 W. Fullerton Ave. in Logan Square, where all proceeds go to mental illness education. Four more outdoor installations are in the works, which Boucher said will go nationwide.

“We’ve enjoyed working with Matthew,” Boucher said. “It’s art and it’s words and we know people are impacted differently when they see and read things.”

Since Boucher started HFTD in 2011 at age 24, he has taken the message “It’s OK Not to Be OK” to the United Kingdom and 20 countries around the world, even while remaining a very local non-profit in Illinois and the Midwest. HFTD is not a hotline, a mental health service provider or a community center, but it provides free one-hour mental health workshops and its website, www.htfd.org, acts as a compass to affordable mental health services and resources such as food, housing, health care, and more.

“The slogan was part of the origin of it all,” Boucher said. “I broke it down that if all the people I had lost knew that it was OK to talk about it, and OK not to be OK. Mental health is such a big thing, if we could have this conversation internally, and ask for help. It starts with us. We are not going to be able to dismantle bipolar disorder, PTSD,” or that men and women shouldn’t cry in certain situations. “It’s a matter of balance. There are good days and bad days.

“The slogan is really about being there and people being able to respond to it how they need to,” Boucher said. “We’ve set up at festivals all over the world and people will say, ‘Tell me more. This is what I needed to hear.’ It allows them to start that conversation with staff or volunteers. They will say, ‘I came to this concert to get away.’ Or, ‘Give me more. I have a family member or friend who is hurting, who could hear this.’

“To me the return on the investment is that one conversation – we have hundreds – the one person who truly needed it at the time. One conversation can truly save a life and that’s all that matters.”