The Sashbear Walk, a walk for mental health, is being held in Steinbach on Saturday, May 25st 

Marisol Pulido is a volunteer with The Sashbear Foundation and is organizing the walk in Steinbach. 

She says the main purpose of this walk is to raise awareness about mental health. 

“And also share the resources that I have been a recipient of with other families that might need the same services.” 

Pulido found out about Sashbear when searching for family supports. 

“I was just Googling some services out of desperation, I couldn't find anything that could help us as a family, then I found this foundation and signed up for it,” she says. “And every time you find something online that says free, you wonder if it's actually free, but I can testify it's a free program for families.” 

The Sashbear Foundation was created in honour of Sasha, the daughter of the founders. 

“And unfortunately, she's not with us anymore. They took all this grief and pain to help others not to go through the same circumstances.” 

Pulido says one in four Canadian families are affected by mental health, and family members are usually the front-line support for this loved one. 

Families often don't have enough support, and they end up feeling isolated and hopeless. 

“And they are the collateral casualties of the mental health.” 

Sashbear has a program called Family Connections. 

This program helps the family members that have a loved one struggling with mental health navigate through different situations, and give them skills that help support both the family member and the family. 

“Sometimes just living with mental health is not easy. So we end up also with anxiety, with depression, with all sorts of things. We want to be happy. We want to be hopeful. We want to be better. But we don't know how to navigate through this.” 

Pulido says they also have the Expert Education Series, which are monthly workshops that they offer online.  

“And then you can learn, and learning about mental health is very important. When your family's hit by this you need to learn different things, you need to understand better. Learning is another tool that you can use to navigate through this.” 

The other purpose of the walk is to raise funds, and Pulido says there have already been people stepping up to sponsor the walk. 

“I am very thankful for this generous community, my goal was $1,000 and I'm very close already, so I'm very happy about that.”  

The Sashbear Walk is on Saturday, May 25th at 10am at K.R. Barkman Park. 

They will be walking down the sidewalk on Main Street.

"I would like you to join us. And if you feel that this story is close to your heart, come and talk to us, and just find out more about these resources because honestly, I can testify that this is amazing. And this is a new way to live in the middle of everything that is going on, or at least is going on for our family."

 

With files from Michelle Sawatzky and Corny Rempel