Pictured is Jeff Winton, founder of Rural Minds, who will be giving a talk at the Chautauqua Community Dinner at Chautauqua Institution Wednesday night. Submitted photo

CHAUTAUQUA — Jeff Winton, the founder of the locally based mental health nonprofit Rural Minds, is set to discuss the growing mental health epidemic in rural America during the Chautauqua Community Dinner at Chautauqua Institution today.

The Chautauqua Community Dinner will be held at the Hurlbut United Methodist Church on the grounds of Chautauqua Institution starting at 5:30 p.m. The dinner starts at 5:30 p.m. and Winton will begin his talk around 6:20 p.m. The public is invited but also asked to bring a dish to pass as it is a potluck dinner, with a $2 fee per person to help with costs. Coffee and tea are provided, but everyone is invited regardless of their ability to pay or bring something to share.

Winton said he was able to connect to be able to give this talk by attending the church that the dinners are held at. He said there is a lot of interest on the topic of mental health in rural areas at the church as many farmers also attend, and there has also been a lot more notice being taken of Rural Minds lately thanks to articles and radio interviews.

The Chautauqua Community Dinners began 25 years ago as a way to bring the local community together, not just those that live at Chautauqua Institution, but those in the surrounding areas year round. After Covid, current coordinator of the dinners, Marie Duke, took over, saying she thought it was something important for the community to have. The dinners, which are held each month have a different speaker on a variety of topics, ranging from fun to serious.

“It’s not about Chautauqua Institution, it’s about the topics people are interested in hearing about,” Duke said.

The dinners focus on community connection, and have recently had some offshoots of that connection come about, including a year-round coffee shop, Chautauqua Common Grounds, at Chautauqua Institution, volunteer-run classes, and the Mayville Chautauqua Alliance Club, which works to provide community outreach to those unable to get out of the house as well. In this way they look to fight loneliness, something that connects to the topics Winton works on and will be talking about.

Winton’s talk will focus on the work that Rural Minds is doing and why, specifically the growing mental health incidents and statistics in Rural America. The latest statistics, Winton said, are that farmers are twice as likely to die from suicide than those in urban areas, and 64 to 68% of people in rural areas are more likely to as well. There are more statistics regarding younger people in rural areas too, including 54% are likely to seriously consider suicide and one in five high school students have considered it.

Winton said some of Rural Minds’ programming focuses on the younger generation now, including a youth program they are putting together with a partnership with 4-H, FFA, and the Grange. They have also recently partnered with Pfizer to make a video — part of which was filmed on Winton’s own farm and another part in North Carolina — to talk about mental health issues with the younger generation in Rural America.

Winton’s talk will focus on situations, statistics and trends, along with providing resources for people who need help, many of which can be found on Rural Minds’ website, ruralminds.org.

“There is a lot of help available but because mental health is still so stigmatized people who grow up in rural areas and on farms are taught not to talk about it,” Winton said. “People may know they need help but are not comfortable talking about it. If people can talk to someone they know and trust in their lives about it and admit they have an issue, then they are able to seek resources to help. There are not as many resources in the rural area but they are there.”

Winton will also have handouts at the dinner with these resources listed on them, and will provide more information on them, including the nationwide 988 help number, which is a free, confidential help number for mental health crises.

Winton said he hopes people will be interested in coming because it will take everyone to help “slow down the train”.

“Every 11 minutes someone commits suicide,” Winton said. “It will take everyone to address this problem that is still in the closet because people are not comfortable talking about it. We need to get comfortable being uncomfortable.”

Winton said he hopes to be able to shine a light on the growing mental health crises in rural areas and also help identify part of the solution by starting discussions in communities and families. Mental health issues are genetically predisposed, so Winton said it is important to have these kind of conversations in families, sighting specifically his own family who used to not talk about things like this until his own nephew committed suicide.

Rural Minds is a Chautauqua County based 501c3 nonprofit that serves people both nationally and internationally, working to spread the word through talks and meetings such as this and by the resources on their website. Some resources are able to be downloaded as documents to be used in other, already existing meetings. Winton said they are currently working on more veteran programs as well, such as horse and other animal based therapy.

The most important thing Winton wants people to know is that this is a growing issue in rural America that will take everyone to solve. There are multiple sub-populations in rural America, he said, including farming, lumber, mining areas and Native American and Indigenous populations, and mental health is an issue that can affect them all and will not go away on its own.

“It will take each and every one of us to help,” Winton said. “No matter who you are or what you do, we need you.”