Garen and Shari Staglin listen at Music Festival 2009 Symposium
Shari and Garen Staglin are heroes, especially to me. They care passionately about helping people with mental illness—it takes up much of their current life. Being able to burn the candle at both ends for ongoing weeks, months and years, and having met so many like-minded people in the world of mental health advocacy and research, they have been able to accomplish a lot. Their Music Festival for Mental Health is the largest mental health charity event in the world, in terms of funds raised (almost $95 million) over 15 years. IMHRO, the international nonprofit that the Music Festival has become, is continuing to grow fast, thanks in large part to their work. And, I, their son, especially admire them not just because they are my parents but because they devoted so much time and energy to care for me when I was sick with schizophrenia. Their unconditional love has made all the difference for me. Please join me now in an interview with my Mom.
BKS: For a long time, I was very sick and you gave it your all to help me cope and get better. Then, the idea came to you to launch the Music Festival. When did the turning point come for you when it was not just about me but about helping people with mental illness everywhere?
SKS: The turning point came when a few years after your psychotic break in the early 90s. We had met Richard Williams our friend, Carol Batten’s boyfriend (now her husband) and a travelling conductor, who was so impressed with the beauty of our vineyard and Napa valley (he was from NY) that he offered to help us produce a Music Festival there. Around the same time, maybe 1993, we met Charlie Trotter at a Birmingham Magic moments charity wine auction and asked him to come to our vineyard sometime to do a dinner for us. He said he would and he’d do it for free if we made it a charity event. Later one morning as dad and I were running around the vineyard, it came to us that we could put the two offers together and do something for mental health research. We had been looking for a way to donate to mental health research to find out the causes and the cures for mental illness, because we didn’t understand why you got sick and we wanted to know why so we could find out the right treatments. We also had learned along the way that mental illness was much more widespread than we had realized and so there would be many more people who would support a benefit along these lines. Hence the 1st Music festival for Mental Health was born.
BKS: You’ve grown a lot over the years I’ve known you. I’d bet that part of that has come from making sacrifices to take care of me when I needed it, and part from spreading your wings with IMHRO. How would you say that these experiences have changed you?
SKS: I was changed because I learned there are some things you just can’t manage or control—as we watched you get sick and as we saw your personal struggles to get better while still moving forward with your life. I wished I could take on your illness myself. I also learned that you and we were vulnerable to misfortune, through no fault of our own and we needed to learn a new approach to just deal with it and do our best to make it better and never give up, no matter how slowly things went (this was hard for me who has no patience). Dad was instrumental in convincing all of us that you would get better. The hope he saw and transferred to us, made a huge difference in my ability to cope and relate to you on a positive basis (so important to your progress).
BKS: I know how much you love putting on the Music Festival. What do you like most about your experiences with the event?
SKS: These experiences have made my life much more exciting, fulfilling and fun. We’ve learned how we could take one passion, wine, and attach it to another passion, mental health research (essentially finding ways to give people back their lives or preventing them from ever having part of it being taken from them) to come up with a successful fundraising effort that is fun and hopeful. It has given us a way to meet likeminded people who also want the same thing and to contribute to it.
BKS: You have immense faith that cures for mental illnesses will come soon, within a generation. What do you base that on?
SKS: The identification of the human genome is the single most impt thing in the last 10 years that has made it possible to identify some of the building blocks of brain disorders. The defective genes being found are a path to finding the right treatments. There will be other paths too. But through this methodology a treatment to repair the Downs Syndrome defective gene, Fragile-X, has succeeded in giving back normally functioning cognitive abilities to adults with this syndrome. This means that gene repair for other defects is also possible and that research will find the answers.
BKS: What’s next for IMHRO?
SKS: We’re starting more international participation through new governing board and SAB members, which is already happening. Also, we’re adding a new focus for our mission: public awareness, hence our involvement in the BringChange2Mind PSA. Making the public more aware of what people with mental illness experience is not just an end in itself, it can reduce stigma, and can help raise funds for research. Also, we’re involved in additional fundraisers around country, such as the Sunshine from Darkness gala in Sarasota, Florida, and smaller dinners throughout the U.S.
BKS: Thanks Mom! 
Readers, if you’d like to learn more about some fun upcoming IMHRO fundraisers you can attend, please visit our events listing.
