Anthologies of Hope

This week's guest is Jonny Boucher, founder and CEO of Hope for the Day. If you’ve been listening all season long, and caught Joel Frieders’s episode to launch the season back in October, you already know the charisma & energy that Jonny brings to any conversation. So I was super excited to capture some of that for all our listeners.

You will hear just how much music is a part of Jonny’s life, how that has inspired him since his youth, became his passion in young adulthood, and still is a beating part of his heart today. We cover some of the trials and tribulations of both of us growing up through the Columbia House and BMG CD era and the status game of how big your CASELOGIC compact disc cases were.

We dive into much more than just the elevator pitch of how HFTD started, where Jonny was when he received the news that would pivot his outlook on life and purpose, as well as what he has planned for 2020 both personally and within the HFTD mission. This is one conversation that I had a planned set of questions for, but at the same time, feels like we didn’t talk about them at all, but yet still ended up answering them perfectly. If you know Jonny, you will come to know, that is often how most conversations with him go.

I hope you enjoy the conversation with Jonny as much as I did and as much as it meant to me to sit across the table from him. If there’s anything else you want to know about Jonny, you can check out Jonny's guest page for more details.

Anyone that knows me, knows that I love Magic. That’s not close-up, “pick a card” magic. No, the trading card game that I fell in love with over 20 years ago, Magic: The Gathering has brought me more in life and has helped to build me as a person more than I will ever truly be able to give it credit for. Because of that, anything I can do to highlight & help the game and the Magic community, I jump at the chance.

So when my worlds collided on World Mental Health Day to see a blog post written by professional Magic player Alexander Hayne, titled “You aren’t alone” and detailing his personal struggles with mental health, I knew my passions coming together was no sheer coincidence. We discuss more about what went into in his blog post, the journey he has been on since a very young age with mental health struggles, how Magic originally benefited his mental health but also at the same time, quick success at the highest levels of Magic organized play led to Magic also being a detriment to his mental health.

I am truly, truly thankful for Alexander’s honesty, courage, and willingness to have the conversation we get to bring you today, to truly show that we aren’t alone in the ways we struggle each and every day. We specifically didn’t dive into all the details of Alexander’s post on his blog, but if you want to read his amazingly transparent and honest account of the turbulent road he has traveled on his mental health journey, you can check it out at insaynemtg.com/you-arent-alone/.

Head on over to Alexander's Guest Page for more info and where you can find him online!

This week's Conversations Cafe, titled November to Remember, features interviews with some of Hope for the Day's Agents of Impact and Partners in Prevention doing amazing work to start the conversation in their own unique ways, breaking the silence on mental health together as a community through their various talents and passions.

Guests this week include:

•Leo Fotos: Executive Producer of TRU - A MUSICAL FOR MENTAL HEALTH, which just closed its run at Stage 773 right here in Chicago

•Kidd Riot: Independent Pro-Wrestler and HFTD Agent of Impact.

•Meghan Crisp: Occupational Therapist.

The Conversations Cafe is a monthly live podcast recording at Sip of Hope Coffee Bar featuring education and open forum dialogue on the intersections of Mental Health within our communities. This education programming is brought to you by Hope For The Day with support from our partners in prevention, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention of Illinois, and Banyan Treatment Center.

Join the conversation. We are in this together.

I am so excited to bring Heather Bodine-Lederman to you this week. If you are not familiar with her by name, you may be more familiar with the successful vegan bakery Pie, Pie My Darling, which she built from scratch right here in Chicago.

Heather is in the process of opening her storefront on the edge of Chicago’s West Town and Ukranian Village neighborhoods, while continuing to bake a ridiculous amounts of cakes, brownies, cookies, and other vegan baked goods with her team to keep the lines staying strong out the door!

Heather is a self-ascribed open-book and we dive deep into her journey & battles along the way - including depression, suicidal ideation, self-injury, eating disorders, addiction, and treatment centers. You will hear the moment that sparked everything to change for her when she was at rock-bottom, as well as everything she heartily fought for along the way to get to where she is today. We also get into how she started to become a vegan and why it is important to her baking lifestyle, but not one that she is adamant to convert anyone else into.

If you are in Chicago, you will definitely want to head over to piepiemydarling.com and follow her on Instagram at @piepiemydarling, as her Instagram Stories alone will satisfy your sweet tooth! If you are not in Chicago and would like to support Heather and Pie Pie, My Darling directly, you can donate to her GoFundMe that she is using to get her storefront up and running by visiting https://www.anthologiesofhope.com/ppmd! Head on over to Heather's guest page for more of her background and to check out everywhere you can find her online!

At long last, Mike Vinopal sits down with us for a long-form, deep-dive, one-on-one conversation covering his mental health journey. In his role as Hope for the Day Director of Education, you have heard him on Anthologies of Hope before leading the Sip of Hope one-year anniversary episode with me and recently hosting our Veterans Day Conversations Cafe episode as well.

You will quickly hear the love he has for Hope for the Day, Sip of Hope, and everyone involved in breaking the stigmas associated with the mental health movement. We cover Mike’s childhood, growing up as a “different” kid in an otherwise white suburban upbringing, going off to college and discovering a whole new world of opportunities, working in the mental health field after discovering the desire to work in the act of service, as well as returning to Chicago to see where life led him full circle.

We also dive deep into how and why Mike came face to face with his own mental health issues after returning to Chicago and the work he needed to do to come out on the other side of crisis, while growing and supporting his mental health both personally and professionally, including how he ended up manifesting his current role into existence!

Throughout you will also hear Mike mention music again and again, so if you would like to see more of where you can find Mike’s musical talents, head on over to his [Guest Page](https://www.anthologiesofhope.com/guests/mike-vinopal) to find out all the bands and locations he is a part of. And if you’d like to meet Mike, learn from Mike, and spend a quality 4 hours with him, be sure to check out peervention.org, as Mike teaches the PEERvention workshops that HFTD hosts at the Logan Square Public Library each month.

This week's Conversations Cafe Veterans Day special edition brings you a supercut of the larger Hope for the Day family and the work they are doing in and around the mental health care space for Veterans of all sorts.

Director of Hope for the Day’s Project R.E.D. Team, Ryan Shannon, kicks us off (5:51) with an opening greeting, the importance of seeking help both during your service and once you return home, and what to be on the lookout for in 2020 from HFTD.

Next up, Director of Education for Hope for the Day, Mike Vinopal, join us for two segments this week. Starting off (7:26), he chats with Sheri Gross of the Road Home Program to discuss some of the great work they are doing to provide support for Veterans. You can hear a little background on the Road Home Program back on our first Conversations Cafe episode, All in the Family, but this week they dive into the details of Sheri’s personal & professional experiences of working to bring the necessary support to those who need it! You can find more info on the road home program on their website.

The second panel Mike facilitates this week (39:46) brings you Schmid Etienne and Lauren Ruckheim of R.E.S.S.E.T. Studio, along with Frank and Alia Reichart, close friends and members of the HFTD Family. You will hear the ups and downs of Schmid and Frank’s service separately, the awesome work that Schmid and Lauren are doing with R.E.S.S.E.T. Studio to bring pragmatic and tactile coping tools to veterans in need, as well as how Frank & Alia discovered Hope for the Day and continue to contribute to the conversation, helping others while they learn to cope with post-service life themselves and for family members.

We launch our new Anthologies of Hope blog with the Eureka series, inspired by Monkey Minion Press, and bring you some major news to the future prospects, direction, and potential of Anthologies of Hope!

Megan Tress joins us this week and I am so excited to bring you this conversation, as we dive deeper into all the things she touched on during her time on the panel of our Season 1 bonus episode, Conversations Cafe - All in the Family.

I love how intertwined all of our interviews are becoming, with so many references and topical overlaps between them. As you’ll recall from just a few weeks ago, Amanda Vitrano was on this very same panel. You will also hear many echoes of our more recent conversations with both Casey Ryan and Amanda Vitrano calling out much of the similar stigmas, hurdles, and hardships that folks face when trying to get help of some sort - for many different reasons.

I am grateful for Megan’s passion in the fight for proactive mental health care and her determination to make a difference in the system that seems destined to be gridlocked for the everyday recipient. Megan brings a very keen insider’s perspective to the conversation around mental health care, working at a provider, and how she addresses her professional career in contrast to & comparison with her personal mental health care needs as well.

Conversations Cafe: First Responders

Our episode this week is titled, First Responders and features interviews with some of Chicago’s First Responders and the intersection of mental health and the important work they do daily to help others. For clarity, a first responder is a person with specialized training, who is among the first to arrive and provide assistance at the scene of an emergency and include Paramedics, Emergency Medical Technicians, Police Officers, and Fire Fighters.

In honor of National First Responders Day, this past Monday, October 28th, we highlight stories and perspectives of representatives from the Chicago Police Department, Chicago Fire Department, and Chicago Emergency Medical Services.

Our guests this week include:

Steve Schneider, a former EMT & Paramedic during his time in Champaign, IL,

Al Medina, former member of the Chicago Fire Department and current member of the Quinn Fire Academy,

Elizabeth Crowe, a licensed clinician from the First Responders EAP program in Chicago,

Chicago Police Officer Kate Sanchez, Mental Health Liaison Officer for the 19th District in the City of Chicago,

Chicago Police Officer Theresa Kelly, Mental Health Liaison Officer for the 18th District in the City of Chicago.

The Conversations Cafe is a monthly live podcast recording at Sip of Hope Coffee Bar featuring education and open forum dialogue on the intersections of Mental Health within our communities. This education programming is brought to you by Hope For The Day with support from our partners in prevention, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention of Illinois, and Banyan Treatment Center.

Join the conversation. We are in this together.

As we kick off the interview, this week’s episode sets the record for the guest I’ve known the longest at the time of recording - coming in at 5 or 6 years! We cover Allie’s journey over the past few years through the course of transitioning, the impact on her life, the effects of previous psychological injuries - both diagnosed and undiagnosed - throughout the process, and how important it is to maintain connection with your support circles - both whom you can support and who can support you.

Allie’s story is not unique, from the perspective in which she describes the reality her mind had painted for her. In actual reality, there was a support system waiting, it was just that she felt like too much of a burden to reach out until it came to the point of crisis. I am thankful for her perspective from someone that has lived the ups and downs and comes through it with the advocacy for staying connected to loved ones, staying connected to your support circles, and advocating for yourself even in the darkest of times - because as long as you have air in your lungs, you are not alone.