NAMI Vigil Set For Sunday

For 16 years, NAMI [NAH-me] Four County has lit a can­dle the first Sun­day of every Octo­ber to raise aware­ness, under­stand­ing and sup­port for indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies liv­ing with men­tal ill­ness as part of its Can­dle­light Vigil for Men­tal Health. The pub­lic is invited to this year’s event which will be start­ing at 6 p.m. Sun­day at St. John United Church of Christ in Defi­ance. Speak­ers will be shar­ing their expe­ri­ences and mes­sages of recov­ery. It all begins with the under­stand­ing that men­tal ill­ness is a brain dis­ease just as car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases affect the heart. And, they are com­mon — affect­ing one in four adults and at least one in 10 chil­dren and ado­les­cents every year. It should be noted that these brain dis­or­ders have a cause and var­i­ous med­ical treat­ments are suc­cess­ful in con­trol­ling symp­toms nearly 80 per­cent of the time. The can­dle­light vigil marks the begin­ning of Men­tal Health Aware­ness Week, Oct. 4–10. NAMI Four County, with sup­port from the Sandy Pot­ter memo­r­ial fund, has dis­trib­uted nearly 3,800 book­marks for pub­lic libraries in Defi­ance, Ful­ton, Henry, Pauld­ing and Williams coun­ties this year.