'Send It Society' Non Profit Aims for Mental Health Awareness in the Pacific Northwest
Words by Joshua Fulmer, Send It Society
I've tried to write this thing about 20 times now, I usually stop around here.
Send It Society's first display booth at Whistler Crankworx 2019.
Long Story Short
My riding partner and brother Matthew Arnold killed himself at the start of this year. I needed to give myself a reason to keep riding. I love it too much. But I was, and still am some days, too scared to do it "alone." Like anyone who loses someone they love, I fight daily against "what if" thoughts: "What if we just went on one more ride last season?" "Why didn't I notice?" "He was my brother. What was wrong with me?"
After I exited the armed service in 2014, it was Matt who helped save my sanity, and gave me the courage to keep me going on by getting us out riding. I founded the Send It Society to offer that same gift to others who struggle with mental health.
Matt Arnold at Stevens Pass, September 2017.
About Matt
This article is about my non-profit, and the memory of a man in whose honor it was founded. Matthew Arnold would give anyone the time of day. As I've grown older, I've learned how much he gave with that. He was always happy to be with friends and make new ones, he was that dude that would be chatting trailside with you and somehow you end up grabbing beers later the same day. He was that dude that hit you up on Pinkbike for a trade deal and had you laughing while he haggled the price down.
Matt hated drops. The dude could clear Gravy Train (up to the last thrower) at Duthie Hill Bike Park, but he wouldn't hit the first drop on Voodoo half the time. We talked about things like mental blocks while riding and how that could translate to real life. We even spitballed the idea of a non-profit for riders to get together and just improve their quality of life.
Boy, do I still get mad at him though, I find myself looking away from this article to watch mountain biking movies, and Red Bull replays on the TV, just to keep my thoughts from going there. I know we hold no right to be angry with these people and the choices they make, but that doesn't help all the time.
About the Send it Society
Send It Society is a Non-profit with the mission of providing a non-clinical healing environment to raise awareness, bring education, and action to mental health through mountain biking and extreme sports.
What does that mean? It means we want people to go outside and be remember to find their happiness.
How do we approach this? We talk, we communicate, we move forward together, doing our best to show our friends, family, and strangers we can try to understand their lives, their struggle, and love them for who they are.
How do we accomplish this? Well, for now, I use the resources and tools I have to get people onto quality mountain bikes* and see what it feels like to let go of life and enjoy the dirt for what it is. For instance; we do a weekly ride with one guided trail run on a beginner course, then group laps divided by skill level, accompanied by conversations on mental health. We hope to break down stigma's about voicing your "problems", as well as guiding people to the proper resources they may not be aware they have access to.
What resources do we have? Current Bikes : Transition TR-250 // Transition Double // Banshee Scythe // Spank Tweet, Shuttle vehicles, and protective gear.
What are our future plans? Planned for the beginning of 2020 season, monthly weekend gravity trips, where we will take a group of riders to a resort for the weekend for some true gravity park fun.We're also working on a presence at more and more festivals, we went hard and sent it making Crankworx our first event, so we've got to keep the line rolling fast. Also, we're developing a race team to help bring more riders into the community around riding and racing.
How can I help? Spread the word, come ride, talk about mental health. Don't be afraid to trust your friends with your "problems." We all have them. If you are able to donate, we are still in our initial fundraising period with the goal to allow for me to focus on this full time and grow it into what it has the potential to be. Networking? If you know anyone in the industry that might be able to help us, please share our contacts info. Same goes on the mental health front. We are looking for like minded therapists, counselors and psychologists who we can recommend and work with for our participants.
One awesome Max Slater (Whistler Guides) saying hi!
Rough Start at Whistler
Crankworx (our first big show) was a solo run by me for the entirety of the festival and I had a point in time where it had been three days and I was on four hours of sleep over those; my mind and body had both had enough.
On my trip North to Crankworx I had a bit of a breakdown. It it was a little embarrassing to not have my booth up for two days of the festival. But, not only were the participants totally understanding on the following days, the Whistler staff was gracious and caring. Plus side? I got to run some laps!
Me riding Whistler laps with legendary Nick Zaback of CushCore fame.
For more information please feel free to contact: josh@senditsociety.org or come see us at one of our upcoming events!.
Website: http://www.senditsociety.org
Email: josh@senditsociety.org
Cell: (509) 731-4732
Author Info:
Member since Aug 25, 2015
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Good luck and keep up the great work
We'll be out at 10 AM - 4PM *approx* I do my best to get a good spot for the tent out in the parking lot. Feel free to swing over for a hug, crisp high five, or maybe some laps later!
I struggled with mental health for the better part of a decade and have only recently been able to work my way through it with medication and counseling. I consider myself lucky to be alive, because there were large chunks of that time period where I thought about suicide every day, if not every hour, or every minute. Now that I have some perspective on the issue, I try to share my experience with whomever will listen. I regularly find that even among people who listen and acknowledge that mental health is an issue that people deal with, and that even they themselves may be dealing with at that very minute, many people are very close minded about seeking help from a professional, and especially about the idea of using medication to help with the process. Great job for bringing more visibility to the issue!
We need to change the dialogue around mental health to reflect the reality that it is not something that a select group of people will deal with, but something that everyone will deal with at some point in their lives. As you continue your mission of helping people relieve stress through the mystical arts of mtb shredding, it might also help to take a look at and refine some of the language you use to describe mental health issues. For example, a couple times in your article, you used quotations around the word "problems". While I know this was certainly not your intention, I think that using this technique to separate the idea of mental health issues from people's other, more tangible, day-to-day problems may actually be helping to reinforce the stigma. When reading the word "problems" in quotations out loud, I can't help but add the air-quotes motion with my fingers that people often use sarcastically to refer to problems that they don't think are important. When talking about your organization in the future, I think it may help to drop the quotations and just refer to them as problems, like any other problem that you may have in your life, whether it is a relationship, or finding a job to put food on your table, or getting rid of that annoying creek in your bottom bracket. All of these problems are real, and valid, and important, and need solving to keep us all living our best lives (especially that bottom bracket).
Anyways, best of luck to you and your organization! Thanks for doing this really important work!
Fantastic work on being vocal on your triumphs, it helps others have hope while breaking the stigma around a incredibly important topic.
I want to be real honest with you, I don't remember putting quotations around the word problems while writing the article and I would never say problems with sarcasm especially regarding mental health. I believe all people have their own struggles in life and some are harder to certain people that might seem easier for others, simply because of their previous experiences or even resources as hand. Thank you for putting light on that and making sure it was addressed. I don't know if it is able to be changed now but I will reach out. Thank you sir.
Cheers and continue doing what you're doing friend. Thank you again.