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Nonprofit dedicated to normalizing therapy for Black Chicagoans celebrating 2-year anniversary with the ‘biggest mental health party’

Chicago Tribune - 7/5/2021

In the midst of the pandemic, Christopher LeMark was almost a year into his charity dedicated to serving Black and brown communities around Chicago with mental health resources when he decided to expand into a full-service coffee shop based in Lakeview East. The charity seeks to normalize therapy for minority communities, as well as creating safe spaces for creative and healthy expression.

In July 2019, the group launched its first event and 20 people showed up. Therapists, a DJ playing ’90s hip-hop, and coffee were on hand. Ever since, the charity and its events have grown, with socials organized to promote open and honest conversations.

The nonprofit that spawned the coffee shop, that opened in November selling creative hip-hop themed drinks which funded sending people to therapy, is celebrating its two-year anniversary at an event at Thalia Hall on Wednesday with live music and “the biggest mental health party in Chicago.”

LeMark, founder of the charity, grew up on the South Side of Chicago without a mother or father, and lived in several different group homes. He endured physical, mental and emotional abuse during his formative years.

After being arrested at 18 and given a second chance by a judge, LeMark said he found both God and a love for performing music. He began performing poetry, then hip-hop on the local Chicago scene.

LeMark had internalized trauma from his upbringing until one day in October 2018 when he broke down, crying into his coffee. LeMark realized he needed help. He headed to therapy, where he was told for the first meaningful time that the trauma and the abuse he had endured was not his fault.

LeMark saw his own community had a stigma against turning to therapy. That’s when he created the nonprofit purposefully named Coffee, Hip-Hop & Mental Health, and began his journey to normalizing therapy for his community.

“Music has always been my first form of therapy. I didn’t kill myself because I had this gift of writing, this gift of music where I could just write my pain. ... So that’s why hip-hop is in the middle of this organization. Then mental health because I started to think about how my community — me, my friends, everybody I’ve ever known — never talked about mental health, I never even heard those words.”

LeMark said creating the coffee shop was always part of his plan. After all, coffee was a key player in his emotional breakdown at a Starbucks that led him to therapy.

Initially a pop-up, Coffee, Hip-Hop & Mental Health opened in November amid the pandemic as a “risk” after the real estate agent for the space donated 90 days of free rent. Through the profits of the coffee shop and merchandise featuring the company’s logo, the charity is able to send people to therapy. Anyone can apply on the website for five free therapy sessions. So far, about 16 people have gone through the program, LeMark said.

LeMark pays the coffee shop employees from $15 to $20 an hour, so the people working for him can also “feel secure,” he said.

The anniversary event Wednesday aims to get back to the charity’s events side that was paused due to the pandemic as activities pivoted to food drives, and raising money to continue supporting community members through therapy.

“We want to get back to showing people what we did prior to the pandemic, because we became really known when we started feeding families. We wanted to get back to the ‘edutainment,’ which is to entertain and to educate you at the same time … we want to be able to have people celebrate mental health, so we can break the stigma,” LeMark said.

LeMark said after the pandemic, the death of George Floyd and others by police and the corresponding protests created an even greater need for a focus on Black mental health.

“It was so many different stories because people were sitting at home with their feelings,” LeMark said. “They couldn’t escape like we did every day before the pandemic, things got worse because people have to sit and actually feel the stuff they’ve been ignoring. And so we saw an even greater need.”

LeMark said he wants to change the narrative of the Black community, empowering by giving it tools to succeed.

“The Black community is taught to be resilient, taught to survive, taught to get out of the way, taught to just go to work and do your very best, taught to be exceptional,” he said. “You have no time to cry, no breaks, you gotta do what you got to do to survive and get out of the way.”

“The reason why Thalia Hall is so important is because what happens is that we are able to take that money and provide real instant resources,” LeMark said. “It’s code red — people lost jobs due to COVID, people lost family and friends, people’s lives will never be the same. People who were doing OK, are not doing good, and people who were already struggling are struggling even more.”

Tickets for the event are available at www.thaliahallchicago.com.

mrush@chicagotribune.com

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