We’re Starting a Nonprofit? We Started a Nonprofit.

“We’re starting a nonprofit and that’s it? No other jobs?”

“Well, yeah. We need to be into this 100% to make it work.”

So here we are, in Richmond and starting Laaser’s Ladybug Society. When Jon and I first started our “Clean Mountain Air” initiative by selling t-shirts, Jon was still the broadcaster at Virginia Tech calling football and basketball, and, to some degree, I thought that was the main reason people were buying our shirts in the first place. The fact that it benefited Mental Health America and then later VT’s student-athletes was just a nice bonus to supporters. That may have been the case for many, but we were still overwhelmed by the conversations it started. Friends, colleagues, neighbors, random VT fans, etc. would thank us and tell us their stories of mental health struggles (either personal or of a loved one). People we thought we knew surprised us by opening up and sharing their stories. 

The outpouring was incredible and recognizing the funds we were able to raise, we really thought we could make a difference. After selling out the first round of shirts we started thinking about what should be next and how we could make this bigger. Unfortunately, as we got more into the football season, we were getting more involved with work and less time focusing on our fundraising efforts. 

For anyone that followed Virginia Tech’s football season in 2021, it wasn’t the most pleasant year. There were tough losses, upset fans and a lot of toxicity on social media (on top of the ever-present toxicity on pretty much all social media platforms). We really liked and respected the coaching staff that season so it was difficult reading some of the negative comments, especially when many of those comments felt like personal attacks and not just criticizing the on-field product. As much as we liked the coaches and staff, we knew that there would be a coaching change coming, which would include a wholesale change of personnel in the building. 

By December of 2021, we felt like we were in a rut. We were both stressed about work, the holidays and family situations. After a lot of conversations and weighing of pros and cons, we decided it was time to leave Blacksburg and go all in on creating this non-profit. We just had no idea how to begin or where to start. 

Deciding what we wanted our non-profit to actually *do* was another series of conversations. We knew we wanted to help those affected by mental health issues get the treatment and support they needed; we just had no idea how to find those people and connect them with that support. Before a flight out of Richmond to visit Jon’s family in Minnesota, we stayed with one of our couple friends; the wife is also a counselor at a high school in the Richmond area. When I asked how her day was she responded “Not great. I had to stop a student from trying to kill herself today.” 

*Record scratch* What? Stop a student from killing herself? 

I was stunned. I learned that it wasn’t the first time she had to intervene to prevent a student from harming him/herself. They also told us about the multiple suicides that have occurred in the surrounding school districts. I had no idea this was happening in and around Richmond. Discussing it more with our friend, we realized the endemic level high schools are at to counsel students who are struggling with mental health issues. It was considered at a critical level back in 2018, but 2020 and COVID have quadrupled the urgency. 

After that night, it became clear that this was the starting point for Laaser’s Ladybug Society. Why wouldn’t we want to invest in our youth and community? It made too much to sense to ignore the fact that teachers and counselors are seeing these students/teenagers every day and would be among the first to notice if there was a problem. 

And so we set out to create partnerships with the school districts, and directly attempt to funnel money to them to aid in the creation and enhancement of mental health initiatives.

While we are still in the infancy of what we hope to become and how many we hope to help, we are moving quickly and will host our first benefit event, a Pickleball tournament, less than three months after taking the first steps of creating the Society. We have had a lot of help already, and offer an open invitation to those that want to get involved. 

It has been a daunting task, filled with more questions than answers, but it has also been exhilarating to create something from literally nothing. 

The launching of this website and this blog just small examples of the steps that we are taking. 

And so, welcome to our online home and to his blog. We hope that each will be places to learn a little, laugh a lot and actively participate in the mental health of our young people.

Please join us!