Youth Mental Health Awareness Event Benefitting Non-Profit Hold Your Crown
SUNDAY JUNE 4, 2023 – Volunteer Park Amphitheate
Seattle, WA - May 2, 2023
Cameron Lavi-Jones, frontman & founder of Seattle’s most loved Alt Rock - Afro-Punk band King Youngblood is proud to unveil his new and improved non-profit organization Hold Your Crown (“HYC”). To celebrate the launch of HYC, Lavi-Jones is producing the first ever In Touch Festival, tasking place at the brand-new Volunteer Park Amphitheater in Seattle on June 4th.
Featuring live performances by King Youngblood and songstress Lily Wecks, the event will also include speeches from Senator Lisa Wellman, a champion for youth education and empowerment in the State of Washington, and Eric Lilavois, producer, engineer half of the duo The Copper Trees and co-owner of London Bridge Studios. Speakers will address the need to dismantle stigma around youth mental illness, and will include public officials, mental health providers, and Hold Your Crown leadership. In addition to the speeches and performances, the event will include breakout sessions with Hold Your Crown leadership and trade professionals so that youth can share their testimonials and access mental health resources.
HYC is using all of May 2023 (Mental Health Awareness Month) to reach out to schools, PTA’s, Boys and Girls Clubs, publications, elected officials and organizations like NAMI and various crisis centers to grow youth participation. Lavi-Jones founded HYC well before the Pandemic, while a communications major at the University of Washington playing house shows. Now post lock down, Lavi-Jones and the team from his production company Dreaming In Color Entertainment (“DICE”) are determined to bring his vision of using music and peer-to-peer youth communication to help dismantle stigma around mental illness, and to share resources to help young people get on the path to mental wellness.
Explains founder Lavi-Jones, “The bravest thing a person can ever do is get help for their mental illness. There should be no difference if you have cancer or if you are mentally ill. There should be no stigma. I have witnessed so much loss of life and health with my peers from high school through college into young adulthood because young people were ashamed to admit they had a problem for fear of stigma. Hold Your Crown is different because we go into a school or a youth gathering place and we first offer a live musical performance to gain the interest and trust of the young people we are serving. During the performance we talk about our own mental health journeys. We keep it real. After the performance we break in groups with the participating youth and we talk – peer to peer and share resources. This is how to dismantle stigma. There is no other program like this in the country. We received excellent training from the mental health providers on our Board and we keep training more young musicians as ambassadors to the HYC mission to expand our reach. This In Touch Festival is just the first of many planned events to reach as many young people as we can especially BIPOC youth who especially are impacted by mental illness stigma and cultural biases. We are just getting started.”
WHEN: Sunday June 4, 2023, 4pm to 8pm
WHERE: Volunteer Park Amphitheater, Seattle, WA 1139-1157 Volunteer Park Rd, Seattle, WA 98102
