September 20, 2024 • 12 mins
We spoke with KV Foundation Board Member William Maag about the KV Foundation and suicide prevention month.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm Alison Demurz.
Today my guest is William mag founding board member of
the Cave Foundation for Mental Health. Good morning, Hi, good morning,
Thank you for having me my pleasure. The Cave Foundation
for Mental Health. Why was it created?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The short story is that all of us, all eleven
board members who formed it just this year, we're very
good friends with someone in our community of Glastonbury who
was struggling with mental health issues unbeknownst to all of us,
and sadly he ended his life last year. He took
(00:40):
his own life and it was a very big surprise
to us because he was the He was like one
of the most outgoing friendliness people that I've ever known.
I'm always ready with the joke, always trying to get
a group of eyes together to go out and do things.
(01:03):
It was just a very large surprise. It really shook
all of us to our core and made us wonder,
like how many other of our friends are going through
something similar and we don't know, and like we don't
want this to ever happen again, or at least we
want to try to do something to prevent it from happening.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
So I want to say to you, William that I
am no stranger to mental health issues or suicide in
my own family.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I once had a doctor say to me it is
more difficult to navigate than cancer. And also when people
get cancer, we send them cast roles. But people who
have mental health issues or have suicidal ideation, we judge
them and their stigma's attached and it's a harder life
for them.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, definitely. And one of the things that we want
to do by creating this foundation is to try to
destigmatize talking about it. One of the ways that we
thought would be good is to just, in a simple way,
try to check in with people around you, whether it's
(02:12):
your loved ones, children, parents, co workers, or even a
random stranger and a grocery store who might you know,
look like they need help, and just just say hey,
you good, you know, just the simple you good, or
you know, are you good? Just to see, just to
check in so that they feel like someone notices them.
(02:33):
And I don't know how, you know how effective that's
eventually going to be, but we have to start somewhere,
and I think the easiest way is to just open
try to open the lines of communication in as easy
and non confrontational way as possible and and just show
trying to show some sympathy and empathy perhaps. So that's
(02:56):
one of one of the missions of our foundation is
to raise the wayareness and try to reduce the stigma
around talking about it.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And that's wonderful. September is Suicide Prevention Months. Yes, I've
been doing PSAs since the beginning of September about it
and telling people what numbers to call. What is your
web address?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
So our web address is kV Foundation for Mental Health
dot org. Kind of a lot. kV Foundation was already
taken and so we had to add the for mental
health at the end. So KB Foundation for Mentalhealth dot org.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Org And you do have the numbers on there for
people to call. I'm just going to mention one of them.
Nine to eighty is the suicide crisis in lifeline if
you are someone you know is in need at the moment.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah. So one of the things that I'm just anecdotally
that I've been finding out, as you know, I actually
started this foundation just going around asking friends and my
children and asking my children's friends. Hey, you know, you know,
nine to one one everyone in this country knows nine
to one one, but do you know what number you
(04:02):
should call if you're having a mental health crisis? And
again just anecdotally, pretty much no adults knew. A few
of the kids knew, but not not a lot. I'd say,
definitely less than half. So that nine eight eight number,
you know, I'll knock on wood. Thankfully, I haven't had
the need for that in my life recently, and you know,
(04:26):
hopefully I won't need you in the future, but it's
nice to know that it's very easy to remember. It's,
you know, as easy as nine one one, It's not
as well known, and that's that's another thing that we
created the foundation for is to raise the awareness of
what resources are available when you're in need. Ninety eight
(04:48):
will definitely be a hopefully a very common number, you know,
become well known in time. Another one that I found
as we were creating this foundation is seven four one
seven four one, which seems kind of weird at first,
(05:09):
but when you look at the number pad on your phone,
it's the left column and it's just the the three
digits on the left column going straight up seven seven one,
and you can text either home h O M E
or the word you yo you, either in English or Spanish,
(05:29):
text that text those words to that to that number
seven four one, seven four one, and you'll be connected
via text to someone at the Crisis text Line and
and their their website is actually Crisis text Line dot
org and they are also doing many things, uh to
(05:51):
get the word out during this September Suicide Awareness Month.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Beautiful, you have an event coming up.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Oh, we sure do have our inaugural kV Foundation for
Mental Health Golf Tournament charity golf tournament, and it's going
to be held at the Glastonbury Hills Country Club in
South Glastonbury, Connecticut on Monday, October seventh. Signing will be
(06:20):
starting at nine thirty. There'll be a shotgun start at
eleven thirty. They'll be a lunch on the go provided
and cocktails at four, dinner and raffles at five. You
can come for golf launch, cocktails and dinner, or you
can come for just cocktails and dinner. You can come
(06:40):
to help volunteer. We need a few few more volunteers still.
There's different levels of sponsorship available in case you're a business,
whether a small, medium or large sized business. Many different
levels of sponsorship starting at one hundred and fifty dollars
for a tea or a whole sponsor, all the way
(07:02):
up to five thousand dollars for a presenting sponsor. There's
dinner sponsors for twenty five hundred and a whole bunch
of others. You can see it all on our website
KB Foundation for Mental Health dot org. We'll have prices
for longest drive, closest to the pin, and hole in one,
and we'll have raffles.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
If you go to kV Foundation for Mental Health dot
org you'll see everything there on the website. And apparel,
very nice apparel.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, we were, we're kind of excited about it. We
got some nice polo shirts, some golf shirts with our
KB Foundation logo on it, and just on the the
left chest area, we have a men's polo Tech shirt
and the women's mess Tech polo shirt as well. We
(07:48):
have a nice men's men's style golf cap hat along
with one probably more for women, but I probably where
you know if you're a man as well. It's it's
a teal, I guess.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And it's a beautiful color blue.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah. So the reason we went with this somewhat unusual,
I don't know, unusual the right work. This unique color
scheme is because they are We were trying to get
close to the color of the Miami Dolphins football team
because the uh, the person from whom the foundation was created,
(08:33):
his favorite football team for some reason was the Miami
dolphinsite living up here in Patriots Country, you better believe
we gave him a lot of ribbing for that, but
he was hardcore Dolphins fan to the end, and so
we wanted to just you know, commemorate that a little
bit for him.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Well, it's very thoughtful and very lovely, it really is,
and it'll complement anybody's skin color.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, it's also it's a listing I think, you know,
the I don't know the peal or baby blue, whatever
you call it, but it's I'm not very good with colors,
but it's a nice, I think, uplifting color. And you know,
it will always remind us of our friend that we lost.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
You know, Suicide, I always say, can't affect anyone, any age,
any walk of life. No one should ever let their
guard down because we can all have a moment of
weakness perhaps or ongoing mental health issues that can bring
us to that. How did this impact your life, Oh,
that's a good question.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I would say that it's just being on the foundation
has absolutely made me very aware of the fact that
you can't tell what's going on behind closed doors, and
life might seem just wonderful for someone and they could
be really, really struggling on the inside. And I think
(10:03):
that that probably actually makes it even harder for them
to reach out because they want to it's easier to
keep up the facade that life is wonderful rather than
to admit to someone that, oh my god, I'm struggling.
I'm struggling really bad and I could use a friend
or some help. And I do want to caution that,
(10:24):
like I am not not most of us are probably
not well equipped to handle, you know, especially serious moments
of mental health crises. You know, you can be there
as a friend, you can you can ask how things
are going. At some point, if it gets real bad,
(10:47):
they will absolutely want to reach out to the nine
eight eight or seven four one seven four want numbers.
So yeah, that's that's our plan for now.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It's a beautiful plan, and I believe that it's going
to be extremely successful. We have a saying that the
suffering is never in vain. You can say to others,
I've been where you are and I got through it.
You will also.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, so I.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Believe that for you. I'm speaking with William mag He
is founding board member of the kV Foundation for Mental Health.
They're having a golf tournament for healthy minds. It's called
It's on Monday, October seventh. It's at Glastonbury Hills Country
Club in South Glastonbury. Registration nine thirty to ten thirty.
Shotguns start at eleven thirty, Lunch on the go, cocktails
(11:35):
at four, dinner and raffles at five. Again. Go to
Kvefoundation fromntalhealth dot org and if God forbid you ever
need anything. If you're feeling suicidal, please dial nine eight eight. William,
thank you so much for serving the community and for
all the amazing work that you're doing.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Thank you very much. I really appreciate the opportunity to
share with your audience what we're doing.
Thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm Alison Demurz.
Today my guest is William mag founding board member of
the Cave Foundation for Mental Health. Good morning, Hi, good morning,
Thank you for having me my pleasure. The Cave Foundation
for Mental Health. Why was it created?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The short story is that all of us, all eleven
board members who formed it just this year, we're very
good friends with someone in our community of Glastonbury who
was struggling with mental health issues unbeknownst to all of us,
and sadly he ended his life last year. He took
(00:40):
his own life and it was a very big surprise
to us because he was the He was like one
of the most outgoing friendliness people that I've ever known.
I'm always ready with the joke, always trying to get
a group of eyes together to go out and do things.
(01:03):
It was just a very large surprise. It really shook
all of us to our core and made us wonder,
like how many other of our friends are going through
something similar and we don't know, and like we don't
want this to ever happen again, or at least we
want to try to do something to prevent it from happening.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
So I want to say to you, William that I
am no stranger to mental health issues or suicide in
my own family.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I once had a doctor say to me it is
more difficult to navigate than cancer. And also when people
get cancer, we send them cast roles. But people who
have mental health issues or have suicidal ideation, we judge
them and their stigma's attached and it's a harder life
for them.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, definitely. And one of the things that we want
to do by creating this foundation is to try to
destigmatize talking about it. One of the ways that we
thought would be good is to just, in a simple way,
try to check in with people around you, whether it's
(02:12):
your loved ones, children, parents, co workers, or even a
random stranger and a grocery store who might you know,
look like they need help, and just just say hey,
you good, you know, just the simple you good, or
you know, are you good? Just to see, just to
check in so that they feel like someone notices them.
(02:33):
And I don't know how, you know how effective that's
eventually going to be, but we have to start somewhere,
and I think the easiest way is to just open
try to open the lines of communication in as easy
and non confrontational way as possible and and just show
trying to show some sympathy and empathy perhaps. So that's
(02:56):
one of one of the missions of our foundation is
to raise the wayareness and try to reduce the stigma
around talking about it.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And that's wonderful. September is Suicide Prevention Months. Yes, I've
been doing PSAs since the beginning of September about it
and telling people what numbers to call. What is your
web address?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
So our web address is kV Foundation for Mental Health
dot org. Kind of a lot. kV Foundation was already
taken and so we had to add the for mental
health at the end. So KB Foundation for Mentalhealth dot org.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Org And you do have the numbers on there for
people to call. I'm just going to mention one of them.
Nine to eighty is the suicide crisis in lifeline if
you are someone you know is in need at the moment.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah. So one of the things that I'm just anecdotally
that I've been finding out, as you know, I actually
started this foundation just going around asking friends and my
children and asking my children's friends. Hey, you know, you know,
nine to one one everyone in this country knows nine
to one one, but do you know what number you
(04:02):
should call if you're having a mental health crisis? And
again just anecdotally, pretty much no adults knew. A few
of the kids knew, but not not a lot. I'd say,
definitely less than half. So that nine eight eight number,
you know, I'll knock on wood. Thankfully, I haven't had
the need for that in my life recently, and you know,
(04:26):
hopefully I won't need you in the future, but it's
nice to know that it's very easy to remember. It's,
you know, as easy as nine one one, It's not
as well known, and that's that's another thing that we
created the foundation for is to raise the awareness of
what resources are available when you're in need. Ninety eight
(04:48):
will definitely be a hopefully a very common number, you know,
become well known in time. Another one that I found
as we were creating this foundation is seven four one
seven four one, which seems kind of weird at first,
(05:09):
but when you look at the number pad on your phone,
it's the left column and it's just the the three
digits on the left column going straight up seven seven one,
and you can text either home h O M E
or the word you yo you, either in English or Spanish,
(05:29):
text that text those words to that to that number
seven four one, seven four one, and you'll be connected
via text to someone at the Crisis text Line and
and their their website is actually Crisis text Line dot
org and they are also doing many things, uh to
(05:51):
get the word out during this September Suicide Awareness Month.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Beautiful, you have an event coming up.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Oh, we sure do have our inaugural kV Foundation for
Mental Health Golf Tournament charity golf tournament, and it's going
to be held at the Glastonbury Hills Country Club in
South Glastonbury, Connecticut on Monday, October seventh. Signing will be
(06:20):
starting at nine thirty. There'll be a shotgun start at
eleven thirty. They'll be a lunch on the go provided
and cocktails at four, dinner and raffles at five. You
can come for golf launch, cocktails and dinner, or you
can come for just cocktails and dinner. You can come
(06:40):
to help volunteer. We need a few few more volunteers still.
There's different levels of sponsorship available in case you're a business,
whether a small, medium or large sized business. Many different
levels of sponsorship starting at one hundred and fifty dollars
for a tea or a whole sponsor, all the way
(07:02):
up to five thousand dollars for a presenting sponsor. There's
dinner sponsors for twenty five hundred and a whole bunch
of others. You can see it all on our website
KB Foundation for Mental Health dot org. We'll have prices
for longest drive, closest to the pin, and hole in one,
and we'll have raffles.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
If you go to kV Foundation for Mental Health dot
org you'll see everything there on the website. And apparel,
very nice apparel.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, we were, we're kind of excited about it. We
got some nice polo shirts, some golf shirts with our
KB Foundation logo on it, and just on the the
left chest area, we have a men's polo Tech shirt
and the women's mess Tech polo shirt as well. We
(07:48):
have a nice men's men's style golf cap hat along
with one probably more for women, but I probably where
you know if you're a man as well. It's it's
a teal, I guess.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And it's a beautiful color blue.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah. So the reason we went with this somewhat unusual,
I don't know, unusual the right work. This unique color
scheme is because they are We were trying to get
close to the color of the Miami Dolphins football team
because the uh, the person from whom the foundation was created,
(08:33):
his favorite football team for some reason was the Miami
dolphinsite living up here in Patriots Country, you better believe
we gave him a lot of ribbing for that, but
he was hardcore Dolphins fan to the end, and so
we wanted to just you know, commemorate that a little
bit for him.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Well, it's very thoughtful and very lovely, it really is,
and it'll complement anybody's skin color.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, it's also it's a listing I think, you know,
the I don't know the peal or baby blue, whatever
you call it, but it's I'm not very good with colors,
but it's a nice, I think, uplifting color. And you know,
it will always remind us of our friend that we lost.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
You know, Suicide, I always say, can't affect anyone, any age,
any walk of life. No one should ever let their
guard down because we can all have a moment of
weakness perhaps or ongoing mental health issues that can bring
us to that. How did this impact your life, Oh,
that's a good question.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I would say that it's just being on the foundation
has absolutely made me very aware of the fact that
you can't tell what's going on behind closed doors, and
life might seem just wonderful for someone and they could
be really, really struggling on the inside. And I think
(10:03):
that that probably actually makes it even harder for them
to reach out because they want to it's easier to
keep up the facade that life is wonderful rather than
to admit to someone that, oh my god, I'm struggling.
I'm struggling really bad and I could use a friend
or some help. And I do want to caution that,
(10:24):
like I am not not most of us are probably
not well equipped to handle, you know, especially serious moments
of mental health crises. You know, you can be there
as a friend, you can you can ask how things
are going. At some point, if it gets real bad,
(10:47):
they will absolutely want to reach out to the nine
eight eight or seven four one seven four want numbers.
So yeah, that's that's our plan for now.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It's a beautiful plan, and I believe that it's going
to be extremely successful. We have a saying that the
suffering is never in vain. You can say to others,
I've been where you are and I got through it.
You will also.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, so I.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Believe that for you. I'm speaking with William mag He
is founding board member of the kV Foundation for Mental Health.
They're having a golf tournament for healthy minds. It's called
It's on Monday, October seventh. It's at Glastonbury Hills Country
Club in South Glastonbury. Registration nine thirty to ten thirty.
Shotguns start at eleven thirty, Lunch on the go, cocktails
(11:35):
at four, dinner and raffles at five. Again. Go to
Kvefoundation fromntalhealth dot org and if God forbid you ever
need anything. If you're feeling suicidal, please dial nine eight eight. William,
thank you so much for serving the community and for
all the amazing work that you're doing.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Thank you very much. I really appreciate the opportunity to
share with your audience what we're doing.
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