After 12 years and a successful run, the Imagine Mental Health Matters team is moving on. The organization, founded by Mona Stott of Niverville, achieved what they set out to do and more, working to eradicate the stigma attached to mental health disease and suicide.

“The communities around here became suicide-safer,” Stott says. “The awareness is definitely out there and people are a lot more comfortable with it. We’ve just lifted the lid off Pandora’s box.”

While the committee morphed over the years, Stott has been there since its inception. They achieved much through their many events, which included a half-marathon along the streets of Niverville, family events at Hespeler Park, craft and fashion shows, and the One Big Day for Imagine event which taught the importance of reaching out to family and friends when you’re in a state of mental health crisis.

But Stott says it wouldn’t have happened without the faithful champions who gave from the heart year after year, including local businesses, members of the Crystal Springs Hutterite colony, and individuals from the communities in which they worked.

This past year, Stott organized speakers for a radio talk show who candidly discussed the disease and its effect on sufferers and their loved ones.

While she hopes to continue her work toward the goal of fighting the stigma, she felt the timing was right to retire from the Imagine team this year. With that, the committee as a whole decided their work here was done.

“What’s happened is that our organization has grown to the point that people think that we’re clinical,” Stott says, suggesting that people in crisis were looking to them for professional help.

The Imagine organization began when Stott herself was in a state of crisis. She and her husband Jeff lost their 25-year-old son Joey to suicide in 2007. At the time, Stott had been training for the Manitoba Marathon. Joey died just days before the marathon, leaving the Stotts devastated and feeling alone in their pain.

To cope, Stott poured herself further into running, which she says gave her a chance to scream, cry, and think along the roads of the rural countryside in which she lives.

“June 17 was Joey’s birthday and it was Father’s Day and also the Manitoba Marathon,” Stott says of the fateful day they buried their son. “I still had this unfinished business that I needed to do in completing the marathon. Looking back, running was a very good coping mechanism for me.”

That fall, members of her Running Room group invited others to join Stott in a run for mental health awareness. About 300 runners showed up to demonstrate their support.

Within months, the Imagine Mental Health Matters organization was born.

Stott knew the team had a big job ahead of them since the stigma carried by mental health and suicide had deep roots. As a child, Stott’s mother suffered from bipolar disorder, a condition that was poorly understood by medical professionals let alone untrained individuals.

She recalls the church viewing mental health disease as “the devil’s work” and heard stories of suicide victims being buried outside of the graveyard’s boundaries with headstones facing west, marking them as unfit for heaven.

Stott’s wish is that her mother and son could be alive today to witness the changes that have taken place in terms of open conversation about the disease, even within the faith community. She encourages parents to begin conversations about mental health at home from a young age.

The first Imagine run in 2008 had a Rock ‘n Roll theme, with local musicians entertaining runners along the route. Stott was shocked and pleased to see parents with young children standing at the end of their driveways, cheering on the runners with chants of “Stamp out the stigma!”

Year after year, the event grew and changed, but one thing never changed—the event became a safe place for people to talk about the loss of loved ones and for others to admit their own struggles and seek help. The Lonely Mile became a permanent fixture: signs along a stretch of the route were emblazoned with the names of those who had lost the fight with mental illness, a solemn reminder of the importance of the mission.

During the early years, Stott pursued training as one of only a few mental health advocates in Manitoba. She was invited to speak at schools and corporate events and was eventually recognized as a master trainer through the ASSIST program. She went on to train staff of the City of Winnipeg and Child and Family Services to recognize the red flags of a suicidal person.

“People are suffering in silence and the silence fuels the disease,” Stott says. “There’s all these red flags and if you care enough for the individual, you’ll take the time to ask, ‘What’s going on?’”

The most common indicators, she says, include risky behavior, self-medicating, lack of personal care, giving away personal effects, and a language of self-deprecation… red flags she wished she’d had the education to deal with 12 years earlier.

“That’s where our medical system needs to step up and look after these individuals,” says Stott of Manitoba’s overworked and underfunded mental health workers. “It’s not for us to be doing that. When you do this, you take on people’s pain and you come back drained mentally because you want so badly to get them the help that they deserve.”

The Last Year

In 2019, as Imagine comes to a close, the committee has sought out ways to disperse the remaining funds entrusted to them. Once again, Imagine offered graduation bursaries to high school students.

The balance will also be donated to high school students, providing opportunities for classrooms of kids to attend a concert performed by the Robb Nash Project this coming November.

Nash is a successful Canadian musician with ties to Niverville. The meaning of his own life came into perspective the year he nearly died in a fatal collision with a semi-truck. Since that time, he’s dedicated his career to reaching out to youth with messages on bullying, addiction, self harm and suicide.

According to his website, more than 800 students have handed Nash their suicide notes after concerts. As well, hundreds of razor blades have been turned in from those who self-harm, and bottles of pills have been relinquished.

Stott and the Imagine team are glad to help people like Nash carry the torch into the future. And while the work of the Imagine team will soon be a memory, thanks to their dedication Manitobans will be talking about mental health issues long into the future.

For now, Stott is excited for the extra time she’ll have to focus on making memories with her husband, daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters.

“My granddaughters will never know their uncle Joey,” Stott says. “There’s always going to be a huge presence missing. It’s just the harsh reality of where we are in our life.”