In Spite Of The COVID-19 Quarantine, THE LOST AND FOUND INITIATIVE Is Celebrating!

In this time of “social distancing”, it’s not a “normal” celebration by any means. For or an extended theater family, prone to frequent large group hugs, and often mistaken for a flash mob due to their collective tendency to spontaneously break into song, it’s not easy to quietly celebrate anything through social media alone. Where do you find an emoji for “HALLELUJAH WE ARE AN OFFICIAL 501C3 NON-PROFIT”? Of course we will celebrate this milestone properly as soon as it’s safe to do so, and THAT celebration might be a little loud even for us. Until then, we are focusing on how we can best serve our community at a safe distance, and supporting each other through this current challenge.

COVID-19 isn’t our first challenge. Like all non-profits, our journey has been full of hurdles. We have come a long way in the 3 years since that first conversation between 2 teenagers in the back of a minivan on the way to a Boy Scout camp. That first idea resulted in 2 bighearted teens secretly running an all night suicide hotline from their bedrooms. They helped many of their peers, they literally saved lives, but at the expense of their own mental health. For our family, recovery was the first challenge. Over the next couple of years, life gave us a crash course in mental health services, and the many gaps in that system. The second challenge was finding a healthy way for these very determined boys to continue serving their peers, so in August 2019, The Lost and Found Initiative was born. Within a few days, having barely started to research the ins and outs of the non-profit world, we began receiving overwhelming support from the community around us. Caliber Collision was the first to step up. Their legal team saved us months of work by focusing our research in the right direction, and helping us understand the filing process. NAMI North Texas also provided great advice and overall support from the very beginning. Some individuals pitched in by paying for our website, State & Federal filing fees, and so much more. Our next challenge was coming up with an inaugural event to introduce our new group to the public. Being a theater family, having access to so many talented singers and dancers, I suppose a concert was inevitable. Oh Look Performing Arts Center immediately offered to host our first official event, and Caliber Collision once again came through by offering their amazing training facility for our rehearsal space. Kala Brand Music donated two beautiful ukuleles for our fundraising raffle. On November 17th 2019, after 3 months of planning and rehearsals, our new family took the stage for the Inaugural Lost;Found Concert.

Post show depression is real. As a theater parent, I’ve seen it in my kids, but I had never truly experienced it myself. When you have worked on a production together for so long, your cast mates become family. When that production is about mental health, and most of your cast signed up because of their own personal mental health experiences, those family bonds become even more precious. Over the course of three months, our cast loved each other thru the deaths of family and friends, illness requiring extended hospitalization, car crashes, physical injuries, anxiety, depression, and the all too familiar stress of juggling rehearsal and performance schedules of multiple productions. We began the process as a collection of 32 friends, family, and strangers. Along the way we lost 15 cast members due to conflicting show schedules, job relocation, family needs, and personal health concerns. The end result was a family of 24 people, telling their own stories through song, of being broken and lost, and finding hope, love, and healing… about being Lost and Found. Of course the show wasn’t “perfect” by professional standards, but this was a real story of overcoming fear, anxiety, and depression. Every teary eye and emotional shaky voice, every nervously forgotten lyric, every misplaced prop, every palpable moment of anxiety, added to the power of the message. All the little “imperfections” came together to make the show more perfect than we ever dreamed. It worked because every moment of fear and anxiety was followed by acts courage and determination, resulting in a more powerful performance. It was beautiful, and I miss it terribly.

Now we face many new challenges. Our initial plan only included 2 fundraising concerts a year, but the success of our first event has lead to several unexpected performance requests. A church & private school in Fort Worth asked us to perform two “Coffee House” style shows in March, NAMI North Texas invited us to perform at their huge NAMI Walks event at Dr. Pepper Ballpark in May, and we are planning a combination live music/physical fitness event with Tempest Free Running Academy in June. These are great “problems” to have! The difficulty has been balancing performances with the true community service events we are planning. Of course all of these events have now been postponed or canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 20th we held what would have been our first community service event. We were forced to reduce the original 33 registered participants down to 9 in order to comply with the CDC group restrictions (at that time). After much table arranging, Lysol wiping, & hand sanitizing, NAMI’s John Dornhiem was able to safely train 6 Lost & Found board members and volunteers in Mental Health First Aid. We had a great time in this very informative class, and plan to offer it again to the general public as soon as it is safe to do so. These are interesting times indeed, and we are now in the process of planning virtual concerts and other online events to help people relieve the feeling of isolation during this difficult season of “social distancing”.

I’ve been talking about the challenges we have faced, but the truth is, our challenges have been minor due to the amazing support we have received. Our problems as a non-profit pale in comparison to the real mental health challenges faced by the people we hope to serve. The Lost and Found Initiative is a community of people loving each other through our mental health struggles. We exist to help patients, family, and friends, find resources, and a place where they can talk about their journey with people who have been there. Everyone we talk to acknowledges that the mental healthcare system is broken, and there are huge gaps between available treatment options. Our goal is to partner with other great organizations like NAMI North Texas, and 22 Kill, in order to fill those gaps. Our concerts are just a way to raise awareness and funds. The real Lost & Found events will be community awareness & training, game nights, music lessons/therapy, open mic jams, physical fitness activities, picnics, and much more. Any way we can think of to bring people together to share information, resources, and emotional support. Let’s get to work!