What’s Right With Our Schools: Brotherhood Brunch at Chatt State

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – Men of any age can have hard time talking about their mental health, but there are people who will listen. That was the takeaway for students from Brainerd, Howard and Tyner at the 5th annual Brotherhood Brunch.

Let’s pay a visit to Chattanooga State for an important example of what’s right with our schools.

Ladarius Price is the President of the Lighthouse Collective.

He explains, “Today, we are focusing on Mental Health with our young men a lot of our young men uh because of the pandemic uh because of just life experiences uh and what’s going on with them they need to have an understanding uh about what mental health really entails.”

Price continues, “We have Briner High School Tyner High School and Howard High School for a lot of our young men they really don’t understand mental health for you know for me, as a 43 year-old grown man, I’m really just getting into learning about the importance of my mental health. uh and what it means to my you know for my overall health. So, we want to introduce this to some uh really lay a foundation for others and really help them to understand the importance of their mental health.”

Sammy Semster is a coach at Brainerd High.

He explains, “It affects us a lot um year and a half ago I had to go through I had cancer I had to go through chemotherapy um and also I was I was still coaching then but like just talking to somebody that done been through it was days that like I didn’t want to get up out the bed.”

Ladarius Price explains, “So, we have you know men that are coaches uh whether it be in the educational realm or athletic realm um and then we have you know uh leaders that uh from the city of Chattanooga uh Hamilton County government that will speak to their life experiences and what they’re going through because we’ve all been through things.”

Dr Kevin McKenzie from Brainerd High says, “My uh brother and my mother uh was sick so taking care of them when I was younger nobody ever knew about that uh my brother had AIDS and my mother was diagnosed with lupus. So going to school every day nobody ever knew about.”

Chris Sands is the Executive Director for Gun Violence and Community Development for the City of Chattanooga.

He explains, “We would talk you don’t you don’t let people in our business we sweep that under the rad you don’t you don’t let nobody know what’s going on. Another thing is our culture. Our culture says we don’t say nothing we don’t snitch that’s been the mindset.”

Ladarius Price adds, “When you internalize everything that you’re going through and you don’t unpack any of that stuff uh at some point in time you’re going to explode and you can explode in in various different ways and so we want to keep our young men from that happening to them uh and understand that it’s okay to sit down and talk to somebody and express yourself and what you’re going through and how you’re feeling we want to really just educate our people education is a powerful tool and it’s not just about math and science and English it’s about life experiences.”

Sammy Semster includes, “Like I tell most majority of my players like if you got something going on find somebody that  you can talk to somebody, you comfortable with somebody, that you can that can relate to you and talk to talk to somebody about it like he said like if you just if you let it just sit in eventually it’s going to explode.”