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To everyone in The NAN Project Community,
We’d like to wish you a happy holiday season and take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support over the past year. We are truly fortunate to be able to depend on so many of you!
To put it simply, we’ve had an extraordinary year at The NAN Project, experiencing both obstacles and successes, but coming out stronger due to the amazing folks Ellen and I are fortunate to work with on a daily basis - from our exceptional senior team down to all the support from Eliot and MSPCC colleagues and of course our remarkable, ever growing cadre of Peer Mentors. To all of you who have contributed to our work this year, we’d like to say "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" In many ways, we’ve never been closer as an organization - from starting every day on the same page with our morning check-ins on Zoom to meeting our young adults weekly for chillaxed hangouts or more rigorous Coaching Days - we’ve seen more of each other than ever before.
While we know there has been incredible upheaval and challenges at many of the schools we work with, we’ve also seen how our virtual programming can impact and provide support and comfort to the students we serve. Because we’re no longer spending 10-15 hours a week crisscrossing the state by car, we now have more time for student presentations, educator professional development training and parent workshops. We’ve found more success doing our parent presentations virtually and also made a big push into middle schools across the state. In just the past month, we’ve done nearly 50 presentations of all different types and impacted over 2,000 students and adults since the beginning of this school year.
Of course we’re all itching for the day we return to classrooms, but the skills we’ve learned will help us expand in the years to come and provide ever more effective mental health education and interventions. We’re also appreciative of the long overdue attention now being given to student and educator mental health and feel well situated to help schools address the challenges they will face. Riding this wave, 2021 will see our workload and commensurate responsibility grow, but we are ready.
For all those that have reached out and provided support over the past year, from donations to encouragement, Thank you! This work could not be done without the Community that has grown up around The NAN Project. Have a wonderful, relaxing holiday season and we look forward to seeing you (in person) in the New Year!
Jake & Ellen
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