In its second year in Columbus, The Butterfly Run will support the national On Our Sleeves™ movement created by Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Butterfly Run presented by the Big Lots Foundation is Sept. 14 at Alum Creek Park North, 221 West Main Street, Westerville, Ohio, and is a family-fitness event created to help bring awareness to childhood behavioral and mental health.
In its second year in Columbus, The Butterfly Run will support the national On Our Sleeves™ movement created by Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The event will champion the platform’s goal of raising awareness and advocacy about the one in five children living across America with a mental illness and ending the stigma often associated with these conditions.
To sign-up or learn more about the Butterfly Run, visit butterflyrun.org. The Butterfly Run will feature a 100-meter kid’s dash at 8 a.m. followed by a 5K run/walk starting at 8:15 a.m. Pre-race festivities and music will begin in Butterfly Village starting at 7 a.m. The cost for the kid’s dash is $20, and 5K participation is $40.
“Mental health, particularly childhood mental health, is impacting all of us in some way and that is why it is important for our entire team at Big Lots to be part of this conversation,” said Bruce Thorn, CEO of Big Lots. “We are proud to support the great work taking place at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Their commitment to shining a national light on youth mental and behavioral health so every child in the country can benefit is commendable.”
Big Lots first made a transformational gift to childhood mental health in 2016 with a $50 million gift announcement to support the Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion and Big Lots Behavioral Health Services at Nationwide Children’s. The Pavilion will open in March 2020 as the largest behavioral health treatment and research center dedicated to children and adolescents on a pediatric medical campus in the U.S. The hope is to develop a national model for pediatric mental health care and research.
“One in five children is living with a mental illness and that is a statistic that should resonate because pediatric mental illness touches everyone,” said Steve Testa, president of Nationwide Children’s Hospital Foundation. Corporate partners like Big Lots, who are invested in our community, are providing much-needed support for our patients, families and our staff of researchers and clinicians.”
If you or your child need immediate help due to having suicidal thoughts, go to your local emergency room immediately, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or you can reach the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741-741.
Contacts:
Andy Regrut, Big Lots, Inc., 614-278-6622
Nationwide Children’s Hospital Media Relations, 614-355-0495
Matt Czarnecki, RacePenguin, 614-595-7286