OUR MISSION
Aspen Strong engages, educates, and empowers people to build and enjoy Mental Fitness—paving the way for a healthy, vibrant community.
FINANCIAL RESOURCE CENTER
Our vision is for Aspen Strong to fiscally support the collaborative efforts of our Valley’s mental health resources as well as manage the mental health fund to support subsidized cost of services for residents and employees who could not afford care otherwise. Currently, Aspen Strong provides limited sponsorship funding and promotion of community organizations to support their awareness events. Additionally, Aspen Strong hosts our annual HIKE HOPE HEAL to support the Valley’s MENTAL HEALTH FUND. Through this fundraising event and Aspen Strong partnerships we provide an annual gift to the valley’s Mental Health Fund – a grant that subsidizes patients’ mental health services.
EDUCATION
Aspen Strong supports mental health education in the Roaring Fork Valley to increase an accredited knowledge base for Valley-wide clinicians and professionals as well as awareness to the community at large. Aspen Strong asks, ‘how can we reach out for help if we don’t understand how to articulate our mental health needs?” Our educational efforts provide our community at-large with knowledge, understanding, and language to communicate and address their mental health needs.
Areas of focus are: Workplace Partnerships, Changing Brains, Changing Lives Symposium, community support groups, in-person and virtual educational opportunities supported by Aspen Strong and other mental health organizations in the Valley.
HISTORY
Aspen Strong was founded in 2014 by Christina M. King, a licensed professional counselor practicing in Aspen Colorado, as a response to Pitkin County’s suicide rate, which is three times the national suicide rate. Pitkin County has ranked mental illness and substance abuse the top issues that have the greatest impact on health. Hike Hope Heal, our annual fundraising event for the community’s mental health fund, was the impetus for the Aspen Strong Foundation. With support of the community and the founder of the Mental Health Fund, Lawrence Altman, the Aspen Strong Foundation blossomed into an organization connecting the Roaring Fork Valley’s mental health resources and promoting mental hygiene.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
Each Aspen tree within a colony is connected by a single root pattern that thrives beneath the surface of the soil. The Aspen Strong Foundation aims at creating a community that cultivates interdependence and strength, replicating its very own, the Aspen tree.