On Wednesday, the Athens State University Active Minds club presented the inaugural Mental Health Summit “It’s okay, not to be okay. Dispelling myths behind mental health.”

Patrice Broaden was asked to be the advisor over Active Minds in October and was given the stipulations of how a club qualified to exist.

The club has to have at least five members and have at least two events a semester.

“So what I did was I started right away with trying to recruit for new members, as well as start thinking of some ideas of what types of events that we could have,” Broaden said. “Well, I thought of why not have a mental health summit since this particular organization is geared around mental health advocacy.”

The students liked the idea when presented by Broaden and they provided the topics that they would like presenters to present on.

“Mindfulness and wellness were one of the topics, so we asked our very own Dr. Vanessa Miller to present on that,” Broaden said.

Students also wanted the summit to cover the stigma behind male mental health.

“So I reached out to my mentor — Jonathan Williams — to see if he would actually do a presentation on that,” Broaden said.

“What started out as a small group activity just so we could get our qualification in for a club has tripled into a big event,” Broaden said. “We had a great response. We actually had more people that wanted to attend, so that’s why we’re thinking about doing it every year so that it can grow and grow and grow.”

The Honorable Judge Sybil Cleveland spoke of her struggles with losing both parents and how that led to her involvement in the mental health court in Huntsville and other parts of Alabama.

“It was challenging, losing both parents back to back just out of high school, just starting college. That’s not something you can plan for, and of course, I couldn’t see past the next day or the next month, so I didn’t know how I’d make it through a challenge like that,” Cleveland said.

“I wanted to do something with that second chance that meant something,” Cleveland said.