Walts Waltz

Mission: Walt’s Waltz is a grassroots nonprofit in Greenville dedicated to eradicating the stigma around mental health through initiatives encompassing education, awareness, policy reform, and targeted research funding. Susan Crooks established the organization following the loss of her son, Walt, by suicide to a two-decade battle with treatment-resistant anxiety and depression. Walt died by suicide on August 22, 2019. The genesis of Walt’s Waltz was a way to honor her son’s legacy and champion mental health awareness. Walt’s Waltz aims to reduce suffering and deaths due to mental health conditions. Over the past three years, Walt’s Waltz has grown and evolved, but its mission and vision remain the same. We aim to advocate for mental health support, education, and change. Our vision is to align physical and psychological health within the same lens of compassion and fair-mindedness, contributing to all humanity's empowerment and care. Walt’s Waltz ends the stigma surrounding those with mental health struggles through professionally led education programs, visual and performing art integration, and creating Walt’s Waltz Stigma-Free Environments. To further reduce suffering and suicides, Walt’s Waltz advocates for equitable funding, including cutting-edge research for more targeted advancements toward novel curative therapies as we see with physical conditions. Through community fiscal support, in 2023, we impacted over 7,000 people. Walt’s Waltz has hosted educational workshops, art exhibitions, and films and has established Walt’s Waltz Stigma-Free Environments throughout the Upstate, but there is a need for more. One thing we know is that mental health is complicated. Many of our current treatment responses fall short of accounting for this factor. Each person’s struggle is complex, and stigma adds another layer to this. Stigma adds to suffering, and at Walt’s Waltz, our first step out of stigma is through education, but we don’t stop there. We know that fighting stigma is not enough. We need to treat mental health like physical health without stigma, judgments, and preconceived ideas.