Loose Leaf Notes

~ The following appeared in The Floyd Press newspaper on October 25, 2012.  The Golden Ticket is scheduled to take place on November 3^rd at 6:00 p.m. at the June Bug Center in Floyd.

When Grace McCutchan came out on the other side of grieving for a loved one who committed suicide, she wanted to help others who were also grieving and those struggling with depression.

The youngest of five sisters who have all taken part in running the family business, the Black Water Loft, McCutchan spoke about the denial and stigma surrounding mental illness.  “He didn’t use the resources available to him. If he had maybe things would have been different,” she said about the young man who took his own life.  “When he did want to talk about what he was going through it scared people. No one wants to talk about it.”

McCutchan’s sister Rose suggested she contact Tommy Edwards, a Virginia Tech alumnus and musician who, following the April 2007 Tech shootings, founded the Heart of Virginia non-profit to bring awareness to mental health through music.  Edwards, a celebrated former Radford high school and Tech football player who has dealt with his own mental health issues, played a Heart of Virginia benefit concert at the Floyd Country Store in 2008.   After moving to Nashville, he formed Music 4 Mental Health, the national incarnation of the Heart of Virginia.

“I told him I didn’t want to sit around and feel sad anymore and that I wanted to do something to help others,” McCutchan remembered. “Tommy loves Floyd, loves this community. He didn’t hesitate at all.”  ‘Let’s do a Music 4 Mental Health benefit concert,’ Edwards suggested to McCutchan right away.

When Edwards was back in the area recently to be inducted into the Radford High School Hall of Fame, he and McCutchan met up. It was then that he shared his idea of calling the benefit concert “The Golden Ticket,” a metaphor for a golden passport to mental health, or a perhaps a reminder that “life itself is a golden ticket,” McCutchan says.

Along with Edwards’ involvement in hosting the benefit concert, McCutchan has also partnered with Joe Klein, a licensed professional counselor and the founder of iBme (Inward Bound Mindfulness Education), a non-profit that provides outreach programs and retreats for improving the lives of teens, young adults, parents and professionals.

McCutchan knew Klein previously when she was a member of the Floyd County High School soccer team that Klein helped coach.   She was making plans to schedule the benefit at the June Bug Center’s Black Box Theater when she discovered that Klein had an office at the center and realized that iBme and Music 4 Mental Health would make a perfect team for promoting mental health awareness.

“Grief itself, if it’s not given an outlet for expression or a support system, can become a mental health issue,” said Klein, who will be speaking at the event. “The right kind of support at the right time can make all the difference for those dealing with depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction and eating disorders.  The lack of it can make a difficult situation feel unbearable and overwhelming.  Then that sense of loneliness and isolation becomes a bigger disabling factor than the original situation.”

Set for November 3^rd at 6:00, and featuring local and Nashville talent, The Golden Ticket will be free and open to the public.  It will also be a community re-introduction to the June Bug Center, which has recently been experiencing a renewal of energy under the administrative management of Heather Krantz.

Currently, the center rents office space and facilitates space for groups. Ongoing activities include dance classes, martial arts classes and AA support meetings.   Conversations about the possibility of future collaborative programs at the center have been taking place with the Music Lab of Jefferson Center and the public school system. YAC (Young Actors Coop) will be rehearsing and performing plays out of the center’s Black Box Theater and two other theater troupes, the Locust Street Players and a student theater group from Virginia Tech, have expressed interest in the center as a performance venue.

The benefit concert will also kick off some of the new programming iBme will offer at the June Bug Center, including holistic addiction recovery and a mentoring program beginning in December that will train young adults and elders to mentor teens, Klein reported.  “One of the best ways to help yourself is to find ways to help others, that way you don’t feel so alone or stuck in your own emotional issues and you realize that everyone goes through difficult times,” he said.

Also in the works is a teen-friendly drop-in center where young people can “get connected with peers and mentors,” and have access to music, performing arts, yoga, training in mindfulness-based stress reduction and support groups for dealing with difficult emotions.  Access to professional counselors for groups and individuals that want it will be available. “The gift of the June Bug Center is that it is a place where people can come and get immersed in performing arts, movement arts, meditation and other creative expression,” said Klein.

Both Klein and McCutchan agree that having creative outlets is important for good mental health. McCutchan cites art therapy and painting as an outlet that helped her through the grief process.  “And music has really helped Tommy deal with his issues,” she said.

Along with the Tommy Edwards Band, another Nashville talent scheduled to perform at the benefit is Butch Robins, a master of the five-stringed banjo and a past member of Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys and New Grass Revival.  Robins currently lives in Pulaski.

Another band on the roster, The Deer Run Drifters, plays mostly original material and consists of Will Norton, Shane Edgell, Sean Edgell, Chris Link and Joe Link.  The benefit concert is personal to the Deer Run Drifters, because they were also friends of the young man who recently committed suicide and formed the band after his death.

Other local talents that will perform at the event include Scott Perry, Abe Gorskey, Zeph Allen and Adelee, a local singer who made it to the top 50 on American Idol.   A silent auction of works by local artists will take place.  There will be a door prize, refreshments served and mental health resource material available.

Last year McCutchan, who graduated from Floyd County High School in 2008 and received a degree in General Studies from New River Community College, did relief work for the United Nations, teaching English as a second language in Malysia. She loves to travel, but, after experiencing a significant loss, she is happy to be grounded in Floyd with her family and friends. “There is so much you can do in your own community.”

Believing that everyone experiences difficult times in their life, McCutchan wants to encourage others to think about mental health and to know their options.  “It’s a big topic. We want to bring some fun to it and make it okay to talk about,” she said.   Colleen Redman