Gratitude & the Power of Community
On evening of May 1st our friends, Robert Agouri and Denise Agouri were recognized by Manulife for their incredible commitment to philanthropy and momentum in supporting youth mental health in our community. Robert was awarded Manulife Securities Community Leadership Award. We wanted to share in the recognition and can’t express our gratitude enough. Take a peak at his words of acceptance and send them both a high five! #shinebright
By: Robert Agouri, Maddie Project Ambassador and Captain of the #getmovingformaddie Run team.
I’d like to thank everyone at Manulife Securities for this wonderful honour.
For the past two years, my family and I have been privileged to work closely with the Maddie Project to raise funds and awareness for the cause of youth mental health.
We believe that, in a country as wealthy and privileged as ours, there should be resources available to keep our children safe from all dangers, even those as pernicious as mental health.
As I wrote these words, I came to realize the grandiosity of it all.
The cause.
Youth mental health.
The cause.
It sounds very virtuous and noble.
To tell you the truth, for us, it’s not a cause. She was a girl named Maddie, Madeline Grace German Coulter.
Maddie was not a cause.
Maddie was not a condition.
Maddie was not a project.Maddie was a girl and she was our daughter Emily’s best friend.
Maddie had an infectious, boisterous laugh and she and Emily excelled at making each other howl so loudly, the whole upstairs of our house would shake.
Maddie took her life on April 11, 2015 in Toronto. And when we got the news, our lives changed forever.
We learned on that terrible day just how urgent the crisis can be for a young person with mental health issues. We had known Maddie was struggling with depression but we had no idea how difficult it was for her and her family to find treatment and facilities that spoke to her in a setting conducive to young people.
We came to understand this is not an issue we can wait for someone else to solve. Young people who struggle with anxiety, depression and any other mental health condition often do not have access in our country. Often, facilities are simply not available for youth and trying to make room for them in adult spaces is not appropriate, effective or sometimes even possible.
• There are as many as 3.2 million young people aged 12–19 vulnerable to depression or other mental health concerns across Canada
• 1 in 5 children in Ontario struggles with mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse, self-harm and eating disorders
• 70% of mental health problems first present during childhood or adolescence
• While mental illness constitutes more than 15% of the burden of disease in Canada, these illnesses receive only slightly more than 5% of health
• Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death for youth after automobile accidents
Young people in crisis need facilities and services dedicated to their needs and their particular treatment. These young people are your kids, nieces, nephews, grandchildren.
When Maddie passed away, her family, her mother Nicole, dad Chris, brothers Zac and Sawyer and grandparents Gary and Sandra made a most heroic choice. Rather than shrink into their grief, they decided to find something good out of this awful tragedy.
The Maddie Project is “A community effort in support of youth struggling with depression and other mental health related concerns. In memory of Madeline Grace German Coulter.
The Maddie Project partnered with North York General hospital “to transform the historic hospital-owned Phillips House estate and grounds into a leading-edge facility for child and adolescent outpatient mental health care, unlike any other in Canada.
With space to accommodate community-based service partners, Phillips House will also host the day school classes that are provided to patients of the General Mental Health Day Hospital. Patients in the Eating Disorders Day Hospital will have access to a communal kitchen, where they can cook and eat together with their families as they build healthy relationships with food.” The Maddie Project pledged to raise $1 million to develop the grounds of Phillips House into a beautiful therapeutic garden, named in Maddie’s honour. Maddie’s Healing Garden will be a sanctuary for children and youth, and a lasting and meaningful tribute to Maddie.
Maddie loved the outdoors and often spoke of wishing for a place where she and the other children in her program could exercise outside. The redevelopment of the 1.2 acres of lush green space surrounding Phillips House will offer countless opportunities for physical fitness and activities to enrich patients’ treatment.”
The initial $1 million was reached in 2016 and Philips House and Maddie’s Healing Garden are expected to welcome their first patients in the first quarter of 2018 and the Maddie Project continues to raise funds to support NYGH as well as other organizations to improve access to services for youth mental health.
For our part, thanks to generous individual and corporate sponsors such as Manulife Financial, Manulife Securities, Manulife Bank, Invesco and Fidelity Investments and many, many enthusiastic runners, our team has raised over $200,000 at the Scotia Toronto Waterfront Marathon the past two years and we will running again this year and would love to have you join us!
My family and I run because we understand how important it is to help young people struggling with mental illness or depression.
As an idea, a concept and a project, it IS such a wonderful and important issue.
But we also run because we miss our dear friend, we miss our Maddie.
And we won’t stop running.
Join us!
Shine bright!
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If you or someone you know is at risk please contact your nearest Crisis Centreor call Kids Help Phone at 1–800–668–6868 to speak to a counsellor.
The Maddie Project is a community effort in support of youth struggling with depression and other mental health related concerns. Driven by community collaboration and events, the project’s goals are to raise awareness by sparking conversations about youth depression and mental health concerns as well as to help provide uninhibited access to support for youth and their families.
The Maddie Project was founded in April 2015 in memory of Madeline Grace German Coulter. To date the project has engaged millions in active conversations around youth mental health and has raised over $1.3 million dollars towards the development of Maddie’s Healing Garden and support of other child and adolescent mental health services in our community.
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