Community Volunteer of the Year!
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United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County

Community Volunteer of the Year!

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December 8, 2015

United Way Community Health Ambassador Tonda Thompson was recognized as Volunteer of the Year at Mental Health America’s annual Community Awards Recognition on December 2. Thompson shared with us what it felt like to be honored for her work and her plans to continue to advocate within our community.

How does it feel to receive this honor from Mental Health America (MHA)?

Winning the Community Volunteer Award from MHA was totally unexpected. I have such a passion for this work anyway, and it’s also a form of self-care for me, so to receive recognition for doing something I already love to do was pretty great. Although, I feel that there’s so much more work that needs to be done in this area.

Give us some background on how you first got involved with Mental Health America’s Strong Families Healthy Homes Program. What did you enjoy most about volunteering? Share one the most impactful experiences you had.

I first connected to MHA through my work as a Community Health Ambassador for United Way. MHA helps support the work United Way does with the Milwaukee Lifecourse Initiative for Health Families (LIHF).

Personally, I connected with MHA after an Infant Mortality Panel Discussion with MHA’s President Martina Gollin-Graves. After the discussion, I was eager to meet her and hear her thoughts on moms with mental health disorders. I had been looking for a way to help moms who had lost an infant, because of my own personal experience with it. I had suffered from multiple forms of depression after losing my one day old son. Soon after meeting Martina, she suggested I work with their Strong Families Healthy Homes program.  With help from the program’s supervisor, I came up with a way to support the program’s moms by uplifting their self-esteem both before and after pregnancy. This included me sharing personal stories with the families, and also giving them family photo shoots.

The greatest moments at those sessions were hearing these women speak about their aspirations to be successful in order to ensure their own children would grow up and be mentally and physically well.

In addition to volunteering for MHA you are a Community Health Ambassador for United Way, talk about how the work you do with United Way ties into MHA?

My work as a Community Health Ambassador for the Milwaukee LIHF collaborative is very personal. After losing my son Terrell, I learned how infant mortality can negatively affect an entire family. In Milwaukee, black American babies die three times faster than white babies. Milwaukee LIHF is an initiative that works to eliminate racial disparities in these birth outcomes. The work I do with MHA combines both my passion to advocate for strong babies and also strong families. Through my work as a Public Ally, I’ve also become a certified Community Health Worker and had the opportunity to work with many great organizations also working to eliminate this issue.

Do you have any plans in the near future around community advocacy that you’d like to share with us?

My plans after my work is done with Public Allies this year, is to continue my work as an ambassador as well as an advocate for strong babies and a strong community. I will continue to strategize ways to promote mental and physical wellness on my own as well as collaborate with others within the public health field. 

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