MENTAL 4 Metal

The Altruistic American wants to help bring more education and awareness to an epidemic in today's society, the mental health crisis. Our end goal with the Mental 4 Metal music festival is to help our local mental health advocates, providers, nonprofits and our neighbors to gain the financing, knowledge, tools and confidence to help battle the mental health crisis. 

The Altruistic American is all to familiar with the real life consequences of this epidemic, according to NAMI.org " Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experiences mental illness in a given year. ". Almost every member of The Altruistic American has been directly affected by a mental health illness in one way or another, either personally or though a friend or family member, thus making this cause very near and dear to our hearts. With help from you, the members of our communities we will be the change we wish to see. 

The sometimes overlooked and less fortunate members of our community need this help just as much as the next, again according to NAMA.org "An estimated 26% of homeless adults staying in shelters live with  serious mental illness and an estimated 46% live with severe mental  illness and/or substance use disorders." they also mention our youth with surprising numbers, NAMI.org claims "Approximately 1 in 5 youth aged 13–18 (21.4%) experiences a severe  mental disorder at some point during their life. For children aged 8–15,  the estimate is 13%." Not to mention the effect mental health plays on our crime statistics NAMI.org states that "Approximately 20% of state prisoners and 21% of local jail prisoners have “a recent history” of a mental health condition."

All of these issues are a condition of an uneducated and unaware society, this can be fixed with compassion, teamwork, and dedication, tools we plan on utilizing full force here at The Altruistic American along with help from folks like you. 

The music festival will be a multi day event, it will have a multitude of attractions to attend, the obvious live music, special guest speakers, vendors and art installations. This will be an eventful weekend for a seriously awesome cause! With that being said, make sure you are staying up to date with information regarding this amazing festival and other Altruistic American happenings by signing up to receive our monthly-ish newsletter. we hope to host our first Mental for Metal festival this year (2019). We will update you with information as it becomes available. 

( The statistics used on this page are from NAMI.org, we do not own the rights to their material. However we appreciate their work in gathering the information provided, please visit their site for more information in regard to mental health.)