NAMIWalk Kern County 2010

JR and I in our Team Warrior t-shirts at the walk

Last Saturday, we participated in our local Kern County NAMIWalk 2010. Well, we didn't just participate, I was the walk manager for this year's walk, and JR was my major support system. We've been planning this year's walk since the summer, so seeing the final results on Saturday was amazing and everyone had great time.

So let's give you some background on NAMI and NAMIWalk. NAMI stands for "The National Alliance of Mental Illness." The most formidable grassroots mental health advocacy organization in the nation, since its inception in 1979, NAMI has been dedicated to improving the lives and individuals and families affected by mental illness. NAMI relies on donations to function, with affiliates across the nation. We highly recommend finding your local chapter for more information (check out. Check out their website, NAMI.org). Our local affiliate is NAMI Kern County, and the NAMIWalk is our largest fundraiser of the year. Over 80 of the affiliates host a NAMIWalk in their communities, raising money to continue providing education. We've blogged about our involvement with NAMI before (What is NAMI? What is Front Line?), but just to reiterate, we become involved with our local NAMI chapter because of their Front Line support groups for veterans and family members dealing with PTSD. We attend support groups together every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month, and JR also co-facilitates a vet only support group though NAMI. Check out the Front Line website for more information at FrontLineNAMI.org.

Our Team Warrior Logo

For the NAMIWalk, people are asked to form teams: family teams, business teams, organization teams, etc. We called our team "Team Warrior" and it consisted of my family, and two other warriors and their families. We had both Army and Navy people on our team. Each team is asked to make a t-shirt to represent their team, so we purchased black and white camo shirts at a local army supply store and created a team "logo." We also put patches on our sleeve representing either Army or Navy (we of course had Army patches HOOAH!).

Here are more photographs from our local Kern County NAMIWalk:

Our team lead the walk around the mile long path. Here we are at the start line.

Our Family at the Walk

West High School Color Guard

The crowd as JR was speaking about Front Line Support Groups and our story.

View of the Park

Donations are still being accepted for this year's NAMIWalk until Dec. 15. If you would like to contibute more to our Team Warrior: CLICK HERE to go to our NAMIWalks Team Page.

Originally posted on PTSDdiary.com 10/22/10