When Matilda “Aunt Daisie” Staunton Craig died in 1933, she left behind a plan that envisioned her 107-acre farm estate that overlooked the Ohio River and Sewickley turned into a residential treatment facility for locals with mental illnesses.“She recognized the difference between psychotic and neurotic forms of mental illness and the need for different approaches to these problems,” wrote Albert B. Craig, a former executive director of the Staunton Farm Foundation, in 1987.Nearly 90 years after the organization’s founding, current Executive Director Joni Schwager says the physical farm is gone, but the foundation continues to perpetuate Aunt Daisie’s mission. Local mental health service providers will build out an educational speaker series, provide meals for support groups, create art therapy studio spaces and more thanks to a series of grants totaling $1.2 million.“We always keep in mind not only what Aunt Daisie [wanted], but the overarching idea of challenging people to think about mental illness and mental wellness in a different way — in a less discriminating way,” Schwager says. “Our vision is ‘Investing in a future where behavioral health is understood, supported and accepted,’ and even in this day and time, we still need to be working on that.”Executive Director Joni Schwager. Photo courtesy of Staunton Farm Foundation.The funds were announced on Oct. 9 ahead of World Mental Health Day (Oct. 10) and distributed to 19 organizations throughout six counties in southwestern Pennsylvania — Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Westmoreland and Washington counties.Some of the projects that received funding during this round of grantmaking involve structural improvements to spaces. Schwager says that Staunton Farm usually encourages grantees to seek support from other local organizations with deeper pockets for capital projects, but the construction requests like the one that came in from Young Black Motivated Kings and Queens during this round were achievable.The youth-centric community group from Penn Hills opened the De’Avry A. Thomas Community Center in August, named after CEO and Founder Kahlil Darden’s 18-month-old godson, who was shot and killed in 2022. Young Black Motivated Kings and Queens seeks to empower young Black Pittsburghers discouraged by local violence.The grant will allow Darden and his team to build out a mental health suite, equipped with space for all types of therapy sessions — from individual and group to music and art — as well as a cool-down room and space for music and art therapy. The remaining funds will go toward selecting a partner therapist.“For us, it’s really about being able to curate a space where young people can get the resources that they need, and not have to go outside the community center,” Darden says. The Kingsley Associations Men’s Group during its Day of Self-Care & Symposium event in February 2024. Photo courtesy of The Kingsley Association.Other grantees like The Kingsley Association are more well established — their East End hub is equipped with fitness spaces, an indoor pool and seminar spaces and is home to four full-time tenants.Its grant is going toward its Men’s Group, hosted in partnership with Steel Smiling — a group that seeks to provide positive mental health care experiences for Black residents of Allegheny County. The group meets every second and fourth Tuesday of the month, serves attendees a meal and offers the men a space to discuss how mental health affects them as fathers and partners, according to Executive Director Dexter Hairston.“The idea is to bring in married men, divorced men, single fathers, single men … and then really spin all of the topics and conversations around mental health,” Hairston says.Aside from ensuring that The Kingsley Association can continue to provide a meal at the meetings, the funds will allow them to bring speakers to add expertise to discussions.“It came up that a lot of the men had expungement questions — they had things in their past that, in their opinion, was precluding them from getting to a place where they could get more meaningful employment,” Hairston says. “We were able to find professionals who could come in and give them tips on expungement. Because we meet every other Tuesday, that gives us a chance to research and find some partners who can come in and … be able to offer some help.”The 10.27 Healing Partnership is similarly seeking to expand its patrons’ access to speakers. The nonprofit was formed after the Oct. 27, 2018, Tree of Life synagogue shooting to provide support and promote resilience in all Pittsburghers who were impacted.Maggie Feinstein, the partnership’s executive director, says the grant will bolster its REACH program, which connects survivors of the synagogue shooting or their family members with schools and conferences to teach a deeper understanding of trauma.“[The speakers] are able to provide firsthand experience of what the impacts of violent extremism look like and tell the stories of their loved ones, but also interact with the kids to talk about issues that are relevant and pressing today for them to combat hate.”Members of the REACH Speakers Bureau at a panel discussion with students from Shaler Area High School. Photo courtesy of the 10.27 Healing Partnership.Other funds will expand the partnership’s work with LIGHT Education Initiative, which teaches educators how to broach topics like the holocaust or genocide without retraumatizing students.Establishing this programming through external partnerships is crucial to 10.27’s mission. The organization operates under the belief that after a decade, trauma stemming from one source becomes ingrained in other parts of life. To ensure that its mission is achieved, the partnership turned that abstract deadline into a tangible one.“We have an intentional plan to sunset the organization by year 10 after the shooting,” Feinstein says. By building up partnerships now, “we’re going to make sure all of our work areas have sustainability in the future.”Schwager says that Staunton Farm has had an ongoing relationship with the 10.27 Healing Partnership as it works toward its conclusion. But it’s not the only organization that’s received continuous support; 15 of the 19 grantees — including The Kingsley Association — are repeat recipients.“The number of organizations that provide these kinds of resources are few and far between,” Schwager says. “In some cases, these are organizations that we’ve had a long relationship with, and we’re trying to help them through their mission because we believe in them.”The post Staunton Farm Foundation grants $1.2M to boost mental health in southwestern PA appeared first on NEXTpittsburgh.