Minority Mental Health Month: Bringing people together and building community

Note: July is Minority Mental Health Awareness Month.

Mary Kirkendoll is all about starting meaningful conversations.

That’s how he got involved in the Minority Mental Health Awareness Picnic in the Park. The event will be from 6 to 8 pm on Wednesday, July 27 at South Park. The event is free and open to the public.

“This is about uplifting and celebrating BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) talent and voices in the community,” Kirkendoll said.

Kirkendoll is the Douglas County Community Navigator. She is also a flutist and a yoga instructor. Her husband, Michael, is an associate professor of piano at the University of Kansas School of Music.

Kirkendoll grew up in Long Beach, California. Her mother, who was white, was a school teacher from the inner city. Kirkendoll’s father, who is Japanese, has not been involved in her life since he was a baby.

Kirkendoll’s mother had a long history of mental illness, but he was not diagnosed until later in life as having bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

“My interest in mental health really stems from caring for my mom growing up. That was a lot for a kid,” Kirkendoll said. “We deal with so many mental health issues. I saw how debilitating her illness was.”

When Kirkendoll was working on her Ph.D. at KU, her mother, who was back in California, was committed to a mental institution, but Kirkendoll did not know what had happened.

“I didn’t know where he was for three weeks; I thought she was dead,” Kirkendoll said. “From that moment on, I decided to take care of her.”

Kirkendoll brought her mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, to Kansas and became her caregiver. Her mother, known as “Sweet Mama Marie”, continues to be her inspiration.

“Caring for my mom has opened a window for me to do this work, which is really beautiful,” Kirkendoll said.

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Randy Vidales was around 8 or 9 years old when he remembers first experiencing social anxiety. The condition continued throughout his school years. To cope, he turned inward.

“He was very quiet and withdrawn,” he said. “My relatives would punish me for that. I couldn’t tell them that I felt uncomfortable in social settings.”

Vidales, who grew up as a first-generation Latin American, grew up in both Kansas and Mexico.

“Mental health is still a huge stigma in the Latino community,” Vidales said. “Because of that and because of cultural traditions, growing up I didn’t feel like I had much of a voice.”

Mental health was not something his family talked about.

“They told me it was all in my head or in my imagination,” Vidales said.

During his sophomore year at the University of Kansas, Vidales decided to seek help. He became close to a fellow student who was majoring in psychology. She was also Hispanic American.

“That made it so much more comfortable to know that she was from the same background,” Vidales said. “She could relate and understand where she was coming from.”

The friend directed him to KU Health Services, where he received a formal diagnosis. In addition to social anxiety, he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.

Since 2018, Vidales has been a member of the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center supportive housing team. She shares her own experiences working with clients and continues to work on her own mental health.

“It has been a long journey, a journey that I firmly believe has no end,” he said. “But at the same time, I realize it’s more about the journey, the progress I’ve made.”

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For someone who is dedicated to helping others, it took someone like him to get him out of the darkest time of his life.

Demetrius (Dee) Kemp lost his two favorite people in the span of about two months. His mother died on November 30, 2020. About two months later, his closest sister died.

“Man, that almost killed me,” Kemp said. “I’ve lost people before, but I’ve lost the two most important women in my life, back to back. My mom and sister were like my best friends.”

Kemp, who lives in Lawrence, had returned to Alabama for his sister’s funeral and was so depressed that he thought he might not be able to return to Kansas. A friend of Kemp’s told him about his niece, Eden, who was 5 years old at the time. Eden didn’t want a party or gifts for her birthday; she wanted to do a food drive for homeless families in Emporia, where she lives.

“I thought if this little girl can do that, I need to go back; I need to go help her,” Kemp said. “I got my friends together and told them I know this isn’t in Lawrence but this girl needs our help so let’s help her. We collected enough food for about 30 families.”

Kemp, who is black, said that growing up, emotions and mental health weren’t something people talked about.

“People used to say that black people don’t go crazy,” Kemp said. “I met people who had to have a mental illness, but it was never talked about.”

When Dee went to Emporia to help Eden, she told her parents, “I never knew your daughter, but she reached down and pulled me. She was finished, she had given me up. That girl, man, she took me out.”

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Family and community are very important in native tribes.

At the University of Kansas, Melissa Peterson, in her role as director of tribal relations, serves as a kind of extended family for Native American students. She works closely with Lori Hasselman, Native American Student Success Coordinator.

“Our native students are used to family and community, so when they come to college, we become that extended family,” Peterson said. “Lori calls it Tía Amor. You hear that often in native communities.”

Last year was Peterson’s first as director of tribal relations, a new position at KU. In fact, he came to Lawrence Kansas to coach volleyball at Haskell Indian Nations University.

Peterson described her role at KU as “a really holistic kind of support system, and that includes being good partners with our tribes and nurturing student development through learning about our local tribes.”

Peterson was part of a panel discussion for Mental Health Month in May that was a collaboration between Haskell and the Bert Nash Center.

“There is a lot to unravel about the native peoples and the history that we have endured, and we are still dealing with these issues. Here in Lawrence, we like to think we’re more open-minded, and we are, but it wasn’t too many years ago that natives couldn’t get past 19^the street,” Peterson said.

Peterson was born and raised in Arizona on the Navajo Nation. She said that mental health was not something that was discussed. But she sees that things are changing. The younger indigenous generation is speaking more openly about her mental health, she said.

“I spent my first year in this new position educating others about the natives. We may not talk specifically about mental health,” Peterson said. “But I try to create events where people can come together as a community. Because mental health is best supported when we understand each other and build a community with each other.”

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Jeff Burkhead is director of communications at the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center.